General Politics Thread

They are now raising the fines. I just find the lack of clarity about devolution weird obviously I shouldn’t have watched it as I live in Wales but I’m 30 mins from the border so I should as well. The biggest problem now is all 4 nations are going different ways which I can’t seeing ending well for anyone
 
I-for one-will be damn glad when this whole covid 19 business is finally in the rear view mirror. Hopefully trump will be on his way out of the White House too.
 
At least I can now jump in the car to drive somewhere to walk around, as I'm running out of places to walk which are sensibly walkable from home (ie not a 3 mile walk alongside a 60mph road with plenty of curves and no pavements)
 
Invisible Crane said:
This is something I urge anyone here to check out. Especially considering the very real possibility of social distancing being a permanent thing. It's a very scary thing to think about
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I don't know which is the more disturbing possibility regarding the Corona situation, the idea the government is floundering and incompetent and has no idea what the hell they're doing, or the idea they're so obsessed with getting the economy running again they're willing to sacrifice people's lives in order to do so.

Certainly the idea of reopening schools while maintaining social distancing rules is insane. How many children are going to fit in the average classroom, let alone school corridor, if they have to remain two metres apart? Isn't a school the perfect environment in which to actually spread a virus, given that it's somewhere hundreds of children from different areas and households are brought together? What about the teachers who will also be exposed to this environment? If we actually care about protecting people, schools should be the LAST places to open, not the first. But of course, they need to get the kids back to school so they can get the parents back to work, because the kind of society we've created is one that's all but done away with the idea of the stay at home parent.
 
Schools aren’t being reopened for kids it’s being opened to get parents back into work as all studies do say Children are least likely to get it, but that doesn’t mean they should open also why the youngest first the ones who always play, fall over so the ones who would have be hardest to say stay away from people I don’t envy reception and year 1 teachers. At least All other countries in the UK are being sensible.

it is funny Scotland gets all the devolution news when Wales and Ni Are doing it too but SNP want to leave UK so better story than actually Labour Government in Wales,it has made me more pro devolution I mean never voting Plaid after what they did to Leanne Wood but want the Senedd to have more powers now and glad Keir has said he wants it too.
 
Reading some of these replies makes me happy to know that in not the only one who thinks social distancing is proving to be mentally damaging. I mean we live right now with the very real possibility of it being a permanent part of our lives. No more physical interactions of any type, no more hugging/kissing/holding hands. Is that a future I or anyone wants to live in?. That's terrifying to even consider
 
Invisible Crane said:
Reading some of these replies makes me happy to know that in not the only one who thinks social distancing is proving to be mentally damaging. I mean we live right now with the very real possibility of it being a permanent part of our lives. No more physical interactions of any type, no more hugging/kissing/holding hands. Is that a future I or anyone wants to live in?. That's terrifying to even consider
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Brave New World perhaps?
 
Invisible Crane said:
Reading some of these replies makes me happy to know that in not the only one who thinks social distancing is proving to be mentally damaging. I mean we live right now with the very real possibility of it being a permanent part of our lives. No more physical interactions of any type, no more hugging/kissing/holding hands. Is that a future I or anyone wants to live in?. That's terrifying to even consider
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But lives are in the balance and I know what I would choose every time to abide by these rules.
 
Am I the only sane one here, is no one taking this potential reality seriously?. So you want yo live in a world where you can never hug/kiss/hold hands anymore, shows like Sesane Street will be teaching toddlers how to keep apart from all times, school kids can never play with other kids again, no more social/physical interaction of any type of all for the rest of our lives?. Social Distancing wardens on the streets and stores. You honestly dont see any big deal in this at all Have you all gone mad?
 
It’s not going to be forever and I would sacrifice that privilege than potentially kill my mother, grandmother, Auntie, Uncle all who are either over 70 or in a vulnerable category. If you live with someone you can still interact with them, I can’t see my partner yes I want to see him more than anything but I’d rather not get ill.
They already wanted to remove freedoms like the internet rules etc and also everytime I’ve been out I’ve never been approached by some official person. It’s just shown the problems with capitalism and it’s focus on work before all else. But hey people voted for that many times. I believe in personal freedom but I also believe Lives should come first and hey might destroy the anti vaccine movement along the way.
 
Very little has changed for me. I worked from home before anyway, so that aspect of things I'd already been comfortable with for 5 years. I used to go out once a week to meet friends - now we do it online.
Like the doc said it won't be forever (and its not often I agree with him)
 
Are we going full-on think of the children! from the start?

It makes no difference to me. I don't walk around kissing random people and never have. The previous 'normal' was probably as uncomfortable for me as the current situation is for those who enjoyed uninhibited social intimacy. I'm sure we'll find a reasonable balance eventually and in the meantime, I'm happy to comply with restrictions and deal with some things being more inconvenient than they were before for the sake of those who need protection from unnecessarily losing their lives.

We'll figure things out and come up with ways to adapt. That's how humanity has kept its stranglehold on the planet. If I've coped with living in an uncomfortable socially-close environment for all of these years I'm sure that the people who liked it that way can tolerate a few months living in my world. There have even been some genuine social benefits; most people have the sense that we're all in this together and a lot of the things that should have been in place to accommodate people with disabilities (like working from home and alternative ways to do everyday things) are now actually being taken seriously.

Maybe we shouldn't be packing hundreds of people into train carriages like sardines, actually. And maybe class sizes of 30+ actually aren't good for educating young minds. Maybe commuting for 3 hours every day at the expense of mental and physical health isn't the best way for people living outside the city to earn a wage. There are lessons to be learned from this and I don't think it's beneficial to anyone to paper over what's happened and go on the same way we all lived before, even discounting my personal lack of upset over lockdown.

R
 
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Invisible Crane said:
Have you all gone mad?
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IC, when the government publishes its guidelines for sealing up our doors and making us wear hazmat suits at all times I’ll get my gun... Er, stick (how do you do strikethrough on mobile?) put on my American Civil War songs and join the revolution, but from where I’m standing it looks more like the government wants the lockdown gone as soon as possible rather than made permanent. While I definitely am missing the simple pleasures of going to cafes and pubs and browsing the few remaining bookshops, I’m not particularly missing that intimate contact with anyone any more than I already have been for about the last decade. Welcome to my world.

As Rui mentions, I think it is probably a good opportunity to look at whether the way society functions is really the best way of doing things; how many people really need to commute and work from a workplace these days? Certainly anyone who only needs a computer and a phone could quite easily work from home and potentially save themselves a lot of money. Do they need constant supervision, does it really matter how people do their job as long as they achieve the desired results? It might show just how unnecessary a lot of management is...

As for children, I do think it’s a shame for them because they do want to do what comes naturally and play and have human contact and the youngest ones aren’t really going to understand why they can’t (plus I myself am pretty much living proof that lack of social interaction as a child socially cripples people later on). However I’m not really sure my opinion has changed that much, I felt sorry for children growing up in this society before the lockdown and I’ll continue to feel sorry for them after.
 
I'm probably going to get frowned on for posting this because I know this man is a bit of a conspiracy Theory nut who believes the current pandemic to be fake. However I fully agree with his stance on social distancing and the potential damage to society it being permanent could be

Seriously screw the new normal, screw social distancing, screw this dictatorship the government has made us live through
 
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Invisible Crane said:
I fully agree with his stance on social distancing and the potential damage to society it being permanent could be
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I don’t know how long your vid will stay up given that the previous one appears to have disappeared quite quickly, I don’t personally take an issue with controversial views (pour one out for David Icke, I don’t agree with all his conspiracies but I do believe in free speech and him being basically no-platformed by pretty much every internet media host is appalling) but of course it’s up to AUKN what they think is appropriate. My observations though are that there is no indication this will become the permanent state of affairs. Like I say, I think our government, much like the US government, is far more inclined towards getting the economy’s wheels turning again than they are keeping lockdown and social distancing enforced.
 
Life has got to get back to "normal" (whatever that is?) sooner or later-politics and politicians be damned.
 
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Some things will change as a result of the lockdown, more businesses will shift to remote working*/working from home, especially if they think it will save them money (allows to downsize office space in London) and if there has been little change in productivity levels.

The idea of the lockdown was to protect the NHS from being swamped with cases, although depends where you stand on the prediction of a 2nd wave now measures has been relaxed. No doubt the country will be paying for the virus for many years to come, how many jobs will get axed when the furlough scheme ends etc
 
I get the optimism here, however I'm starting to genuinely think the UK government is going to find any way to keep the lockdown going
In fact I'm already picturing a scenario where its near the end of the year, the virus has been completely contained and its spread almost nothing. The majority of the world had opened back up and people are allowed to move freely with terms like new normal and social distancing forgotten about. Meanwhile the UK is still in a state of permanent lockdown because our government has scared the population into believing the constant threat of a second wave which never came or it did but it was nowhere near as bad as it was made out to be, and social distancing is now a permanent thing and no one dares question the government despite the rest of the world being free and open

Its becoming more and more clear that we are all doomed to spend the rest of our lives in a dystopian/authoritarian hellhole where any form of social/physical contact is banned
 
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