We're in Covid crisis mode again - and this is just the start. Why? Because Johnson is trapped between libertarian herd-immunity crowd, and a faction that wants to use the crisis to privatise public health... there is no functioning state.... 1/
2/ They promised major businesses there would be no second lockdown - not in public statements but in private briefings. So whatever the epidemiology says, they have to stick to local lockdowns...
3/ But during the summer the libertarians were on top, urging the return of schools, universities, office workers and of course restaurants... the exponential curve is back as a result....
4/ The Tories have *never* feared mass infection and death; what they feared was the collapse of the NHS, which would be politically unsurvivable... as soon as that looms, as in Merseyside, it's back to tough local lockdowns...
5/ Only now without the generous fiscal support, so the inequality effects - already large - will mushroom. Handily, mayors and council leaders with no real power will get to carry the can when this fails...
6/ At the centre of it all are the unaccountable JBC and the "behavioural scientists". Their models of behaviour are essentially Nietzchean, so they don't believe in enforcement, only "nudging"...
7/ There is strong support for heavy lockdowns - national or regional doesn't matter: people want to know they are making an equal sacrifice, and they want key industries saved or rationalised...
8/ At the heart of the shambles is the privatised test and trace service, and the ridiculously late App. Now they say let's involve local public health bodies: why not since March?...
9/ With the App they started off trying to create a non-anonymised ID registry - a massive power grab which they were told by industry experts was a non-starter; they wasted weeks anyway...
10/ What we need: nationalise the test & trace system and fuse with local public health; big carrot/big stick on App use; demonstrable national consistency in enforcement of the 3-tiers; and probably double the £330bn Sunak has allocated...
11/11 I cannot see why UBI is continually ruled out. As a temporary measure, as with Trump's handout, there is nothing anti-systemic about it: just pay people what they need to live on, hunker down, build civil society links online and help the vulnerable. What's so hard? 🤷♂️
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