If this had symptoms like Ebola you wouldnt have silly cunts saying its the flu or partying like normal.
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Should have no greater rights than my shop as we’re both in the business of selling.
We agree on that. Boris’s popularist and libertarian tendencies made him slow.
Your point about economic damage is wrong. That doesn’t automatically lead to loss of lives, only when poor policy decisions are made.
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It’s a shame you and I don’t live closer. I’d love to meet up for a walk perfectly legally and meet the police who want to enforce laws that don’t exist.
I am not wrong. Plenty of economic studies show it does. Well accepted. Of course it can be mitigated by good policy.
And the real people to feel for are the poor, brave sods in hospitals who have been caring for the sick for 10 months of this. My heart goes out to them for the physically and mental effort.
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Personally I think he’s just lazy but yeah the libertarian argument works.
That’s true only because the safety net is non existent and you have such a massive gap between the top and bottom. Better services, better health cover, better education lead to a healthier and stronger society but they wont invest in that. quite the opposite in fact. Austerity proved that.
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You need money to invest. Tax receipts currently do not cover that scale of spending.
They’ve funded the rich quite well during the last 10 years, even through Austerity.
The gap between the bottom and top has increased over the last few years (more probably). That’s not right, not from a political party line, just simple common decency.
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I would agree. Although it alway intrigues me when they say the rich (not super rich). Should pay more. Percentages mean they do. Inherited wealth and landed gentry then feck them. Hard working people who have made it good through hard work not the same.
And “they’ve” brings a clear political slant which is ok. But I was trying to be objective.
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Hello @epsomred?
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No idea. Sorry :). Not meaning to offend or antagonise. Enjoying the debate.
I’d be happy for you to share links to them. The consensus amongst economists has largely been in favour of the lockdowns.
Ok. Watching a pretty rubbish game so will not go digging now. My point is only it’s complex and, despite thinking I have ok smarts, I would hate to have to choose.
And for the record I hate our current politics. All show and positioning. No substance. Incremental change with no real ambition.
Take the NHS. Cannot possibly operate the same now as when created. Longevity etc. Needs a real cross party, creative solution. But that’s too hard. It’s a shame.
We will look back in 50 years and see what we have now is not real working democracy. Ok - I am not about to storm parliament with a Viking helmet and confederate flag!
Maybe not, but government borrowing at negative rates and/or historically low rates of interest can do.
30 years ago the government was borrowing at rates up and around 13%, some of that debt will have been expiring since last March as would be debt issued after that period (rates didn’t fall below 5% until after 2001). We will have been borrowing at negative rates for some of last year and positive rates not much above 0% - so even as the debt ballooned last year, borrowing costs i think are still below previous years?
Given historic rates of real growth (about 2.2% p.a?) and inflation of about 2 or 3 %, and heavy borrowing now wouldn’t be that big a burden on the government’s finances over the longer term. Even if inflation remained subdued over the next 5 or so years at 0.5%, it should still see government revenues outpace interest and capital payments on the debt.
Great post. Money is cheap now so it’s about how you spend it. COVID has fecked us rather.
Infrastructure? Benefits? Job investment? How to use it to truly level up? How to invest to get long term change and benefit not just a spend, boom & bust cycle?
Given the football is better and I have had a bottle of red i will not offer a manifesto. But this debate and possible solution shows that with the right debate a real solution is possible across nonsense tribal politics.
How do we get to that debate in this country.
just fixed that little bit. 
taxation is not the be all and end all to improve balance. Just simple changes to the budget, spending and certain rules and laws would help a lot. There s of course that whole argument surrounding missing taxes in the UK. Brexit will not help that cause much.
Even then with taxes the numbers don’t have to be crazy. From memory Labours tax proposals at the last election would have meant that people on £80k a year would pay and extra £5 a week I think it was. In simple plain numbers that doesn’t sound crazy or excessive at all.
On the other side there are huge issues with how the UK spends its money as well. We could be a whole lot more efficient.