A good chunk of biological reality puts government in its place. As a biologist, though far from an epidemiologist, I listen to government ministers, radio presenters, a rag bag of political pundits, talking about coronavirus and I just keep thinking ‘You don’t have a clue what you are talking about, do you? You said that in an attempt to sound reassuring or active rather than because you have the faintest understanding of what’s happening, or any real interest in informing the public.’.
President Trump is not quite at his worst, but his worst is very bad, but he is pretty obviously awful when talking about biological reality. Boris Johnson is little better. Whereas I would rate our PM streets ahead of PotUS in the intellect stakes, we have a PM who is at sea when it comes to unspinnable biology. Well, you can spin it but the reality will present itself and be bleeding obvious in time.
Matt Hancock doesn’t seem to have been entirely truthful about the government’s close working relationship with supermarkets and so George Eustice was on the phone to them all yesterday to plug the gaps.
We have a government of lightweights, and some of them are makeweights, presented with an epidemic that will affect the way we see our society, our lives and our family and friends, and a small-state Conservative government of politicos has not inspired me one bit so far. I’m not saying a Labour government would be doing much better, though, hang on, yes, I think they would. Because Labour believes in the state acting for its people whereas this is a mindset hard to adopt for some of the present Conservative party.
I wrote this straight after the general election result in December;
It’s pretty obvious that running a country, and healing the wounds of a people, require different skills from winning an election. And there will be events, dear boy, which intervene. Who knows what floods, agricultural diseases (like bird flu, which is back), terrorist attacks or small wars in foreign parts might intervene to throw the government off course in the next weeks or months.
https://markavery.info/2019/12/13/several-cups-of-tea-later-1/
Well, it wasn’t an agricultural disease, it is a human disease. So, we’ll see. But a government of the lightweights facing an epidemic is quite a challenge. I didn’t vote for them.
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Have you decided which ‘heavyweight’ leader of the Labour Parry to vote for yet, Mark?
Richard – not yet, not for sure, what is your recommendation, Richard?
I’m a member of the Green Party. Lyn says you’ve got to make up your own mind this time!
Covid-19 is going to knock off a large proportion of the elderly people who are clogging up NHS resources and living to an older age while benefitting from higher pension rates. I bet some of the Conservative nasties are rubbing their hands in glee at the spin they can put on that boost to the economy as a benefit of Brexit whilst probably also hoping that they’ll be in for some early inheritance money. Hopefully I’m being cynical again. Hopefully…
But that demographic is also supposed to be the Conservative support base so a pensioner cull might not be in their long-term best interest.
Even if the numbers end up being quite dramatic I rather doubt that the number of people who eventually die or the proportion of these who are elderly will be sufficient to make a big economic difference in terms of freeing up resources for the NHS.
If you wish to be cynical I would suggest that a more plausible scenario is that the negative economic effects of the pandemic will provide the government with a scapegoat to draw attention away from any negative impacts of Brexit that occur. We have seen what a slopey-shouldered lot this government are when ten years after they first took power they are still blaming Labour for the state of the economy.
Ah right so a substantial section of the conservative party actively want millions of people to die in order to deliver an economic dividend which they can then pretend comes from our policy towards the EU.
How interesting!
I guess the main thing that separates them from full blown Nazis is that they don’t want a centralised state to do this directly through mass extermination camps?
I am not sure who your comment is addressed at Giles but to be clear I neither suggested nor believe that anyone in government actively wants anyone to die as a result of Covid-19.
The virus is infecting people around the world and that is having significant economic consequences in terms of disrupting supply chains, limiting travel and so on and I believe that this has been reflected on ‘the markets’. This provides the opportunity for government to blame economic ills that they might otherwise have been held responsible for on the virus and I for one won’t be surprised if they seize that opportunity. This does not mean that I equate them with Nazis running death camps as I daresay you already know.
It is a feature of governments (of all political stripes) that they attribute economic prosperity to their own wise custodianship of the economy but blame economic recession on factors outside their control or as Mark and Macmillan put it ‘events, dear boy’.
it was in response to “Dave” actually
so it’s all your fault, Mark. You could become a Tory govt. ‘super-forecaster’ – “Who knows what floods, agricultural diseases (like bird flu, which is back), terrorist attacks or small wars in foreign parts might intervene…”
….. security situation in Sahel is getting steadily worse again and spreading – N Ghana etc.
I didn’t vote for them either (and wouldn’t have done in any part of UK) but we had/ have better alternatives in Scotland.
Well I didn’t vote for them either but we live in a democracy so this is the government we have got. I would hope that all the parties can work together to make make this work.
It won’t happen, because the Tory mentality now is little different from that of Islamic State. They are not team players. Theresa May’s deal having been voted down by her loony right and the Orange Mafia, on 29th March 2019 her deadline for leaving the EU passed. She asked for talks with Labour on April 2nd… And now the Tory jihadists are running amok like IS in Palmyra and Mosul Museum.
Though, unfortunately, you and many others did vote for Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labour Party.
Sandra – I did. I’m not sure that it was a mistake the first time around.
Mark, please, drop the dead donkey.
Which neoliberal ghoul did you vote for, Sandra?
Neoliberal, that’s a big word for a small, loud bird.
For all his manifest faults Tony Blair did achieve a number of important things that improved the life of working people including the minimum wage, various reforms to LGBQT rights, benefits increases, Northern Ireland peace process, improved access to countryside, freedom of information act, improvements to maternity and paternity rights. Can you point to the concrete achievements for working people that Jeremy Corbyn can be credited for during his illustrious career?
Corbyn’s ideological purity may endear him to you over candidates you identify as neo-liberal ghouls but if he can’t get elected what is the point of choosing him as party leader?
The same reason people vote green and the same reason people voted SNP before 2011.
isn’t this kind of factionalism why Labour are basically completely fucked?
Probably not Giles. It is quite typical of political parties that they periodically undergo bitter struggles for their control. I note that the Tory party has had two acrimonious leadership contests since the Brexit referendum and has itself been deeply split (or ‘factionalised’ if you prefer) over Europe for years.
It is quite typical of political parties that none of them have an “Honest” faction
As several commentators are pointing out, Boris and Dominic may have picked slightly more fights than they are able to cope with – and then ‘events’ intervene. I do find the current situation scary, not because it necessarily is, but because the abilities, but even more so the attitudes, of the people ‘in charge’ don’t signal a good outcome – this is where stripping any slack out of public services and antagonising the civil service and NHS (who, however will do their best, given the faintest chance) come crunch up against reality. And as for super forecasting, the summer floods of 2007 were more than enough to show that the game had changed – 13 years on we’d done next to nothing to respond. It’s not the biology or physics that’s the real problem – its institutional inertia.
There are a few people on this blog who should be government advisors for Defra. Not weirdos or misfits, just wise, sensible people.
Great video on the maths
https://youtu.be/Kas0tIxDvrg
The only thing to fear
Is the lack of fear
That pretty much sums it up!
Certainly applies to the our management of nature for the past 60 years, and our plans for the future.