Off Topic Coronavirus
- Thread starter Sooperhoop
- Start date
-
Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
-
Trying to sleep before a night shift and having 3 kids in the house and 2 kids next door is a bit difficult to say the least.......here’s to trying anyway
Be safe out there
Thanks for putting that up, Nines. Lord Sumption is indeed an academically brilliant man - as Jonathan Sumption QC he was widely regarded as the most intelligent barrister of his time. He's taking a liberal view, and few could complain about his views on the over-the-top actions of some from the Derbyshire Police Force.
I have to say I don't agree with him beyond that. First, because I do think if this virus was let loose, it would spread quickly and take peoples elderly loved ones. The NHS would not cope with numbers and would have to elect not to treat elder patients. Do we want to live in that kind of society? Second, because draconian laws can be brought in, and then dispensed with when the external threat is gone. Regulations on WW2 are an example. Blackout laws, rationing, property requisitions etc were all highly restrictive but barely left a mark on society when the war ended and the economy started to pick up again.
Can’t listen for 17 minutes I’m a busy man, what did Lord Sumption have to say? He has an interesting history. I listened to some of his Reith lectures until I realised something.
A week in to the distancing stuff, I detect some Irritation amongst the Rs faithful. Personally I wish it wasn’t happening but my family is getting on well and as an anti social git it’s not too bad for me. I’ve worked remotely for years and it’s quite fun seeing people in my firm who haven’t struggle with it. But I’m lucky, getting paid, have a (small) garden, don’t have small kids, am not getting hassled by police when I go for a walk, have Woody’s excellent fitness guide to pretend to exercise along to. I recognise that not everyone is in the same boat. Good luck all, deep breaths.
Thanks mate.Sitting in the mess room waiting for our truck to come back from it’s day turn......can’t say I’m looking forward to the next 12 hours
Good luck M.Thanks mate.Sitting in the mess room waiting for our truck to come back from it’s day turn......can’t say I’m looking forward to the next 12 hours
It's not for 17 minutes, Stan, it's at 17 minutes. It last about 3 or 4 minutes. It's an interesting alternative take to the rest of the world!
Been doing the lunges and the raises with my 4 pint milk receptacles filled with sand. Crunches tomorrow. Will eventually combine into a circuit. Good stuff sir, cheers.
Great. If it works for you, let me know and I’ll come up with ways to develop it.
Thanks Bob, I suppose for us and our situation regarding our wives it’s more of an issue than for the folks without a need to worry.
How is Mrs Bob ? , hope all is well.
He talked about what he considered to be a disproportionate response to a problem, the inevitable suffering and debt that will be felt for years to come and the dangers of a police state, where the police decide to act based on their own interpretation of what the govt would like, but cannot legally enforce.
Cheers. My problem with him is, whether he is right or wrong I cannot forget that in 1974 he was one of the writers of a speech in which Keith Joseph (before your time) said that women of limited intelligence or little education should not have children because ‘The balance of our human stock .....is threatened’. Thankfully this did end Joseph’s chances of becoming Tory leader (we got Thatcher instead, yay!).
So even if Sumption says something that, if it was said by someone else I would agree the **** out of, I really don’t want to agree with anything that Sumption has said.
This is a weakness on my part, but at least I’m aware of it. At my age I don’t expect to change it.
Last edited:
Yeah she's not too bad to be fair. What she thought and I though were symptoms haven't really progressed. Fingers crossed. The sooner this is over the better. Hope you guys are ok.
Here's the transcript ...
The real problem is that when human societies lose their freedom, it's not usually because tyrants have taken it away. It's usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection against some external threat. And the threat is usually a real threat but usually exaggerated. That's what I fear we are seeing now. The pressure on politicians has come from the public. They want action. They don't pause to ask whether the action will work. They don't ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying. They want action anyway. And anyone who has studied history will recognise here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria.
Hysteria is infectious. We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.
Q At a time like this as you acknowledge , citizens do look to the state for protection, for assistance, we shouldn't be surprised then if the state takes on new powers, that is what it has been asked to do, almost demanded of it.
A Yes that is absolutely true. We should not be surprised. But we have to recognise that this is how societies become despotisms. And we also have to recognise this is a process which leads naturally to exaggeration. The symptoms of coronavirus are clearly serious for those with other significant medical conditions especially if they're old. There are exceptional cases in which young people have been struck down, which have had a lot of publicity, but the numbers are pretty small. The Italian evidence for instance suggests that only 12% of deaths is it possible to say coronavirus was the main cause of death. So yes this is serious and yes it's understandable that people cry out to the government. But the real question is : Is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up , saddling future generations with debt, depression, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable distress inflicted on millions of people who are not especially vulnerable and will suffer only mild symptoms or none at all, like the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister.
Q The executive, the government, is all of a sudden really rather powerful and really rather unscrutinised. Parliament is in recess, it's due to come back in late April, we're not quite sure whether it will or not, the Prime Minister is closeted away, communicating via his phone, there is not a lot in the way of scrutiny is there?
A No. Certainly there's not a lot in the way of institutional scrutiny. The Press has engaged in a fair amount of scrutiny, there has been some good and challenging journalism, but mostly the Press has, I think, echoed and indeed amplified the general panic.
Q The restrictions in movement have also changed the relationship between the police and those whose, in name, they serve. The police are naming and shaming citizens for travelling at what they see as the wrong time or driving to the wrong place. Does that set alarm bells ringing for you, as a former senior member of the judiciary?
A Well, I have to say, it does. I mean, the tradition of policing in this country is that policemen are citizens in uniform. They are not members of a disciplined hierarchy operating just at the government's command. Yet in some parts of the country the police have been trying to stop people from doing things like travelling to take exercise in the open country which are not contrary to the regulations, simply because ministers have said that they would prefer us not to. The police have no power to enforce ministers' preferences, but only legal regulations which don't go anything like as far as the government's guidance. I have to say that the behaviour of the Derbyshire police in trying to shame people into using their undoubted right to take exercise in the country and wrecking beauty spots in the Fells so that people don't want to go there, is frankly disgraceful.
This is what a police state is like. It's a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority and the police will enforce ministers' wishes. I have to say that most police forces have behaved in a thoroughly sensible and moderate fashion. Derbyshire Police have shamed our policing traditions. There is a natural tendency of course, and a strong temptation for the police to lose sight of their real functions and turn themselves from citizens in uniform into glorified school prefects. I think it's really sad that the Derbyshire Police have failed to resist that.
Q There will be people listening who admire your legal wisdom but will also say, well, he's not an epidemiologist, he doesn't know how disease spreads, he doesn't understand the risks to the health service if this thing gets out of control. What do you say to them?
A What I say to them is I am not a scientist but it is the right and duty of every citizen to look and see what the scientists have said and to analyse it for themselves and to draw common sense conclusions. We are all perfectly capable of doing that and there's no particular reason why the scientific nature of the problem should mean we have to resign our liberty into the hands of scientists. We all have critical faculties and it's rather important, in a moment of national panic, that we should maintain them.
Q Lord Sumption, former Justice of the Supreme Court, speaking to me earlier.
We were just discussing his words and thoughts over dinner. I read your post out and you got a yay from my daughter.
Didn’t know that, cheers.