Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[mongers]

A scientist advising the government has accused ministers of allowing infections to rip through the younger population in an effort to bolster levels of immunity before the NHS faces winter pressures.

The allegation comes after England's remaining Covid restrictions were eased on Monday, with nightclubs throwing open their doors for the first time in the pandemic and all rules on social distancing and mask wearing dropped even as infections run high.

Ministers were made aware of scientists' concerns about reopening nightclubs and other crowded, close-contact and poorly ventilated venues without testing or other checks in place. On Monday Boris Johnson made the surprise announcement that Covid passports will be required for such settings – but not until the end of September, in two months' time.

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"What we are seeing is a decision by the government to get as many people infected as possible, as quickly as possible, while using rhetoric about caution as a way of putting the blame on the public for the consequences," said Prof Robert West, a health psychologist at University College London who participates in Sage's behavioural science subgroup.

"It looks like the government judges that the damage to health and healthcare services will be worth the political capital it will gain from this approach," West said, adding that ministers appear to believe the strategy is now sustainable – unlike last year – because of the vaccine rollout.

A large wave of infections, coupled with mass vaccination, would push the UK closer to "herd immunity", where enough people in the population are resistant to the virus that it no longer spreads. The threshold for herd immunity with the Delta variant is unclear, but scientists estimate that transmission would need to be blocked in about 85% of the population. Ministers have repeatedly denied that achieving herd immunity by letting cases rise is the government's goal.

Monday's easing of restrictions removed social distancing, the work-from-home order and legal requirements around mask wearing, though ministers called on the public to remain cautious. The move prompted a flurry of regional mandates to maintain masks on public transport, including the London tube, buses and trains, and Manchester Metrolink trams. Legal limits on mixing indoors lifted at the same time, allowing all businesses to reopen.

The change in rules led some clubs to open at midnight on Sunday, leading to packed bars and dancefloors across England. Similar scenes in the Netherlands in recent weeks led the Dutch premier, Mark Rutte, to reimpose curbs on bars, restaurants and nightclubs as new cases rose sevenfold.

The shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, said: "Abandoning all precautions and allowing infections to climb not only risks further restrictions in the future, it condemns thousands to long-term illness and places huge pressure on the NHS. Rising Covid admissions are helping exacerbate a summer NHS crisis, with operations cancelled and increasing waiting times. It means we are heading into another difficult winter and high levels of virus circulating could see a vaccine-evading variant emerge. This is an utterly reckless strategy from Boris Johnson."

Data from the Office for National Statistics show that coronavirus in England is now largely an infection among young adults. Cases in 11-to-16-year-olds are nearly four times more common, and in 16-to-24-year-olds nearly six times more common, than in 50-to-69-year-olds. While generally at low risk from the disease, young people can still develop long Covid and help fuel the epidemic, which drives up cases in those who are more vulnerable.

Prof John Drury, a social psychologist at the University of Sussex, is concerned about the changes that came into force on Monday, such as dropping the mandate on mask-wearing, which "sent a very strong signal" that the Covid crisis is now less serious.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Drury, who participates in meetings of the Sage behavioural science subgroup, said recent research showed that people use government policy to make judgments on risk and how to behave. "The overall message is that the actions by the public – not only mask-wearing, but also distancing and avoiding crowded places – are no longer required."

This has already affected public behaviour, he said, though those ditching Covid precautions appear to be a large minority rather than the majority. "Fortunately, many people are aware of the rocketing infection rates and the risk posed to many people in society including the most vulnerable and are continuing to wear masks and keep their distance out of solidarity as much as self-protection," Drury said.

A government spokesperson said: "Herd immunity has never been part of our pandemic strategy. Our approach has always been to protect the NHS and social care, save lives, and ensure as many people as possible are vaccinated as we learn to live with Covid-19.

"While the vaccination programme has substantially weakened the link between infection and serious illness or death, we have been clear about the need to exercise personal caution as we ease restrictions.

"We are encouraging settings to make use of the NHS Covid pass by requiring either proof of full vaccination or a negative test and we reserve the right to mandate certification if necessary to reduce transmission."

Any guesses on the likely transmissible/lethality of the coming Johnson variant?

[Sheilbh]

I'm glad you've come round to the usefulness of behavioural scientists

I also find it fascinating that that tradition appears to have moved from nudge theory to anything less than legan compulsion is surrender.

Semi-relatedly - and this is the sort of thing that is going to push me fully into a DONT TREAD ON ME left-libertarianism - is this from the Telegraph:

Politics For All
@PoliticsForAlI
BREAKING: Boris Johnson is to launch a new programme where the government tracks what people eat and how much exercise they do. And if people do well they get discounts and free stuff

Via @Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/23/families-could-get-rewards-healthy-living-new-war-obesity/
Please - just tax people (maybe even have taxes on unhealthy food) and pay for a functioning state including healthcare but this public health, for want of a better word, "nanny state-ism" drives me mad. And it seems to be basically the same under New Labour or the Tories (from Cameron, May or Johnson). It's like the plans to force all restaurants to show calories for their dishes which will basically massively increase the costs for SMEs, hurt creativity because you can't change the menu as much and mainly create jobs for public health/nutritional consultants

Separately - as a huge fan of the Know Your Enemy podcast - I totally agree with this tweet from Ben Judah:

Ben Judah
@b_judah
Is there anything remotely like the excellent  @KnowYrEnemyPod in the Britain? Both in terms of quality or serious engagement with what conservatism is from the Left? Standard Guardian column is just  chortling about Tories as halfwit has beens before  being outflanked by them.

In a George Eaton of the New Statesman posted part of a recent leader noting that Labour/the British left have always slightly struggled with conservatism because they are doctrinaire (or small-c conservative about their own tradition), while the Tories aren't.

Johnson loves a grand projet which goes against everything Maggie and her successors stood for, but MacMillan and Ted Heath were also big fans and thought the state should have  key role in planning the economy. The Tories have been Europhile and Eurosceptic, protectionist and liberal, isolationist and interventionist. That flexibility/protean politics may be an advantage in an age with great challenges that require a state response and state capacity: climate, ageing populations, great-power conflict, wage stagnation and more pandemics. It'll be easier for them to respond than a party wedded to, say, it's Thatcherite/anti-state position (like the GOP).

The Tories don't have a revered intellectual canon like the Republicans do in the US - or Labour in the UK - and Labour may be slower to adapt as it takes some time to reconcile its tradition with the new issues.

Edit: E.g. I see that today Tim Montgomerie, who founded the ConservativeHome blog and was a speechwriter for William Hague and IDS during their leaderships - and briefly advised Johnson too, has written a piece called "Do the Tories still believe in capitalism?"

[Richard Hakluyt]

This food business requires careful forethought....something the government is not renowned for 

We eat well and healthily in my household but our groceries cost more than £200 per head.....and that is with me walking to all the different stores including Aldi and Lidl where their stuff is good.

So I think that many families would simply not be able to afford that. Johnson's new programme could end up being yet another bung to the already well-off.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - as is, say, gym membership for the activity side of things. Plus we're not a country overflowing with public exercise spaces due to previous governments' decisions to cut funding/sell them off.

And even food taxes (in the way we tax alcohol and tobacco) seem an issue to me because I think they would be quite regressive and primarily a tax on the poor.

But I also think there is a growing sort of moral element to all of this which I find slightly problematic (though, as I say, in line with British history) - a sort of deserving sick (didn't smoke, didn't drink, did their exercise, ate their veg, went to bet at 10pm) and an undeserving sick who we need to start managing and regulating.

[Tamas]

Yeah - as is, say, gym membership for the activity side of things. Plus we're not a country overflowing with public exercise spaces due to previous governments' decisions to cut funding/sell them off.

And even food taxes (in the way we tax alcohol and tobacco) seem an issue to me because I think they would be quite regressive and primarily a tax on the poor.

But I also think there is a growing sort of moral element to all of this which I find slightly problematic (though, as I say, in line with British history) - a sort of deserving sick (didn't smoke, didn't drink, did their exercise, ate their veg, went to bet at 10pm) and an undeserving sick who we need to start managing and regulating.

I disagree. Targeted taxes to both discourage unhealthy behaviour and more importantly to help finance society taking care of the results of that unhealthy behaviour are fair. They are a tax on whoever is engaging in those behaviours and being poor should not be an excuse. You seem to be inclined toward handling the poor as society's children, but assure you, they are not.

[Syt]

Ed Miliband (remember him?) laying into Boris Johnson and how he has no idea how the Brexit deal works:

https://twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1418833659570888704

[Tamas]

Ed Miliband (remember him?) laying into Boris Johnson and how he has no idea how the Brexit deal works:

https://twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1418833659570888704

In an alternative universe he didn't try to eat that bacon sandwich and thus he is PM and we are still in the EU.

He is right, though.

[Tamas]

I'm glad you've come round to the usefulness of behavioural scientists

This has nothing to do with his work. :p But rather his information or at least impression on what the government is planning.

And its very plausible. The plan to introduce vaccine passes to night clubs but only after two months of free mingling is a very nice indication. Herd immnunity is back on the table and like 1.5 years ago they are making an unconvinced effort trying to hide their plan is to weed out those who can't take it.

[Sheilbh]

I disagree. Targeted taxes to both discourage unhealthy behaviour and more importantly to help finance society taking care of the results of that unhealthy behaviour are fair. They are a tax on whoever is engaging in those behaviours and being poor should not be an excuse. You seem to be inclined toward handling the poor as society's children, but assure you, they are not.

I don't entirely disagree with that - it's also why I support quite high carbon taxes, especially on petrol. But I think taxes should broadly be progressive and targeted at people who are best able to afford to pay them and if a set of taxes (such as on carbon or petrol or sugar) has a disproportionate impact you make other adjustments to help the poor.

It's less that I'm saying treat the poor as children, but rather that the society and the state should exist for human potential - for us all to have the rights to whatever cultural and educational achievements and expression we can/want to reach. The same goes for pleasure too - and it feels perverse (and I think immoral) that when a British billionaire is taking a sight-seeing trip to the upper atmosphere with huge carbon outlay our primary concern is the pleasure the poor may take in processed food putting pressure on the NHS.

I also think there's still a lot of truth to Orwell's line on this - cheap, unhealthy food is a cheap, unhealthy pleasure:

Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you.

This is also what I mean by UK politics feeling increasingly like a healthcare system and pensions with a state attached. We need to move beyond just looking at everything through the lens of whether it would help "relieve pressure" on the NHS. We can just increase taxes and pay more fot the NHS without getting in everyone's lifestyle choices.

In an alternative universe he didn't try to eat that bacon sandwich and thus he is PM and we are still in the EU.

He is right, though.

Sadly I can't see a scenario where Ed ever won. What lost it wasn't the bacon sandwich but the implosion of Scottish Labour (from 41 of 59 seats in 2010 to 1 seat in 2015 ) - I think in a  way Labour's whole internal debate since then is both a reflection of its Anglocentrism/"English Unionist" approach which both explains how they got there and is part of why they can't get out.

It's a good clip, but Ed is everything that annoys me about the soft left/left-liberals (I've heard him do interviews promoting his podcast and it drives me up the walls) and I think probably one of the most catastrophic Labour leaders ever. He lost Scotland, he lost so many seats a minority Tory government managed to win a majority and he opened the door to Jeremy Corbyn. And let's not forget that Labour's manifesto in 2015 committed to an in/out referendum if there was a new treaty.

This has nothing to do with his work. :p But rather his information or at least impression on what the government is planning.

Sure - but in terms of whether it's the right approach I'd be more interested in hearing from the academic advisors who experts in epidemiology or modelling (and they seem divided on re-opening) rather than a health and social psychologist. Though I'm sure they have valuable input on other bits.

And it's too soon to tell because we need at least another week to see the impact of Monday - but, week-on-week case numbers are negative for the first time since May and something is happening with cases (without new restrictions - which we've never seen before). I don't know what - it could be the sun, the end of the Euros (schools in England only closed yesterday so it's not that - they've never been a big contributor to R):


I know lots of people are saying tests are down considerably but I don't see it (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/) they will fall a lot because schools are closed, so schools won't be doing daily tests but I don't see it yet. It might bump back up because of Monday or it may keep trending down (my suspicion is the impact may be quite small because the people who are going to go clubbing weren't sitting at home doing needlework until Monday) - but something's up.

And its very plausible. The plan to introduce vaccine passes to night clubs but only after two months of free mingling is a very nice indication. Herd immnunity is back on the table and like 1.5 years ago they are making an unconvinced effort trying to hide their plan is to weed out those who can't take it.

The passport vaccine thing is in part because they don't have the votes - it will never happen. There cabinet members opposed to it, a lot of Tory MPs hate it and the Labour party's opposed so there's no route to that scheme. I think the plan was a "nudge" after all because given cabinet and Tory opposition there's no way Johnson could have imagined that he could impose it - I think it was put forward as an idea to encourage more young people to get their jabs/drive up vaccination rates.

Also isn't herd immunity the entire strategy of vaccines? You reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death for the most vulnerable and allow everyone to get a vaccine to protect themselves against infection/hospitalisation and death? What is the approach and purpose of vaccines if not to get to herd immunity (and the vast majority of the 92% of people with antibodies has come from vaccines)? What's the alternative?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Schools up here closed a week earlier than the south of England btw, that may have had an effect.

[Sheilbh]

Schools up here closed a week earlier than the south of England btw, that may have had an effect.

Yeah maybe - but it's too soon to tell but it looks very similar to Scotland. Schools were and are relatively marginal - most of the new infections were in the 18-45 year olds and that seems to be falling fastest. Also from what I've seen the fall seems to be happening in all regions at a similar sort of rate. It's why I suspect it may have been a Euros peak, but I don't know. There's lots of factors it could be.

Another piece on hauliers considering industrial action to take advantage of their very strong hand right now - obviously they should. Schubert's comments in this article are entirely right and why they should push for every advantage they can get

UK lorry drivers plan to strike over low pay and poor working conditions
Nearly 3,000 hauliers are proposing a 'stay at home' day, prompting fears over already creaking food supply chains
Mark Townsend
@townsendmark
Sat 24 Jul 2021 17.52 BST

Lorry drivers are planning a nationwide strike over their working conditions, prompting warnings that this would magnify food shortages and cripple the country's already creaking supply chains.

Hauliers are proposing a "stay at home" day next month in response to low pay and working terms, an event designed to compound the effect of the UK's lorry-driver shortage , which last week led to widespread stock shortages. However the Road Haulage Association, which represents commercial road haulage companies and has more than 7,000 members, warned drivers against taking action saying it would make a "bad situation worse" and severely disrupt automated chains.

So far the "stay at home" action on 23 August has attracted nearly 3,000 HGV drivers with another 340 joining last week. Lorry driver Mark Schubert said: "For far too many years we have been ignored, exploited and taken for granted. Now our time has come, now we have a window of opportunity to be listened to."

Speaking on Friday afternoon from a traffic jam on the way to Norwich, Schubert added that he had never seen such momentum for change in his near 40-year career as a driver.

"We are trying to send a message that drivers are thoroughly fed up with the way they are treated by employers. Yet as long as stuff's on the shelf, people don't seem to give a damn about us."

However Kate Gibbs of the RHA cautioned against any action that may heighten the effect of driver shortages, itself compounded by the "pingdemic", which has seen food supply-chains hit as workers self-isolate.

Even the exemption of about 10,000 workers at 500 food distribution centres from quarantine does not appear to have offset the effect of the current shortage of 100,000 lorry drivers. On Friday, the supermarkets Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's began asking suppliers for extra payments to cover the costs of raising wages for delivery drivers in a desperate move to offset shortages.

Gibbs said: "We understand the drivers' frustration but downing tools is not the way forward. We don't want to make a bad situation worse. A supply chain that runs like clockwork only requires the tiniest thing to throw it out completely.

"If you think things are bad now it'll just make things so much worse."

Last week, the government unveiled plans to help tackle the lorry driver crisis, including easing driver qualification requirements and improved working conditions. However Schubert is among those who believe these not only fail to tackle the sector's concerns but could also take at least six months to take effect, failing to tackle the threat of food shortages this summer.

He also said that the effects of Brexit, which is believed to have forced around 25,000 truckers to return to the EU, had been underscored by the Home Office's hardline posturing since. "Looking at the way [the home secretary] Priti Patel and her cohorts in the Home Office treat foreigners, they're not going to be overly keen on coming back," he said.

"Even if they can, are they going to be treated like criminals when they arrive at the border? This issue can't be solved overnight. Even if you allow east European drivers on short-term work visas this is going to take six months to two years to fix."

Comments from that company representative about sharing workers frustrations but they mustn't use their leverage to make things worse

After the drivers I hope the shop workers and the health workers get involved - I remember lots about the pandemic revealing who the real "key workers" are. They won't get a reward just by hoping government/employers will do rigth by them

[The Brain]

One last hurrah before drone trucks.

[The Larch]

Comments from that company representative about sharing workers frustrations but they mustn't use their leverage to make things worse

Yeah, it all boiled down to "we're completely reliant on them for everything to work fine, so they should behave and not do anything to jeopardize it"

[Sheilbh]

Only one poll etc - but this is striking:

Also interesting is the Tory lead with C2DE voters has gone from +18 to +3, they've largely moved to Labour (though that has been off-set by Labour losing a lot of ABC1 voters to the Greens).

My guess would be this is because of the whole "freedom day" thing which is very unpopular - and, I think, has basically ended the vaccine bump/vaccine politics. It is still tough for them politically - Tory elites hate restrictions and want them lifted ASAP; Tory voters love restrictions and never want them to end

[Sheilbh]

Lib Dems have announced they will also oppose vaccine passports - I think it's got no hope now. Labour + Lib Dems + Tory rebels should be enough to defeat any measure. And club owners have already set up a legal fund to cover the costs of test cases in the courts about it.

New cases today down to 29,173 (from 31,795 yesterday and 48,161 last Sunday) - the seven day average is properly trending down now. Week-on-week cases are dosn by about 15%. It is still too soon to tell the impact of Monday. But I think this is an important moment because this is the first time - in the UK at least - where case numbers are falling without a new national lockdown or new level of restrictions as an obvious cause. I think of all the factors, I suspect the most important is the end of the Euros.