The scientist whose advice prompted Boris Johnson to lock down Britain resigned from his Government advisory position on Tuesday night as The Telegraph can reveal he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover. Professor Neil Ferguson allowed the woman to visit him at home during the lockdown while lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing in order to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The woman lives with her husband and their children in another house. The epidemiologist leads the team at Imperial College London that produced the computer-modelled research that led to the national lockdown, which claimed that more than 500,000 Britons would die without the measures. Prof Ferguson has frequently appeared in the media to support the lockdown and praised the "very intensive social distancing" measures. The revelation of the "illegal" trysts will infuriate millions of couples living apart and banned by the Government from meeting up during the lockdown, which is now in its seventh week. On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, travelled across London from her home in the south of the capital to spend time with the Government scientist, nicknamed Professor Lockdown. The 51-year-old had only just finished a two-week spell self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus. Prof Ferguson told the Telegraph: "I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies]. "I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms. "I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us."
Consolidation, decline of smaller local shops, and an even greater emphasis on online/mail-order sales. All things that were already in the offing, but this is a bit off a double-whammy: if you're a small shop that relies on walk-in traffic, not only did you lose that traffic in the short-term, but your customers also likely found new sources while you were closed. Same thing will likely apply in smaller doses to sectors like car sales; people already hated the in-person haggling model, to the extent that some were experimenting with fix-price sales and removal of the dealer market. I'd expect that to accelerate, because buying a car is The Worst. The next big knock-on effect, I'd imagine, would be on office space: offices in big cities are incredibly expensive, such that it never really made sense to have 1000 workers occupying 20 floors when you could have half that with everyone else working from home. Now that companies have been forced to explore that, I'm guessing that we could see a bubble pop in terms of insanely expensive office towers, where companies increasingly keep just the core on-site and significantly decrease their physical footprint. Which brings us to our one good bit of news: while this will **** the economy and workers in a whole bunch of ways, from a land-use standpoint it isn't the worst. Strip malls were already dying; this will kill a lot of them, and there are few worse blights than miles of single-story shopping with acres of tarmac. Some square footage in cities may end up being reoriented toward housing rather than office towers (and, dare I dream, mixed-use properties that aren't at boutique pricing), which would make cities more livable. It might also lead to greater suburban sprawl, if people no longer have to consider living close to workplaces that are generally concentrated in major metropolitan centres, and while I'm no fan of suburban sprawl, it would also reduce traffic and pollution, so tradeoffs.
Convert unused office space into huge multi floor hydroponics farms. Economical use of water supply too. Cuts down food miles if you've got 20 floors of salad in every city centre.
Absolutely; vertical farming is going to be a must in the future, and there are some really neat ideas for integrating it into mixed-use residential spaces.
For sure, in future developments, but huge open plan spaces and open structured buildings that could become obselete would be awesome farms. Clever use of light wells to cut down on electric light, clad one side of the building in solar panels and you're gold
Definitely. Be nice to grow something other than cubicles for a change. Solar panel cladding also would reduce the light pollution/bird strikes that office towers are wont to produce.
I have no doubt that this will happen and I am convinced that Boris will not see out his term as Prime Minister. The news over the last few days regarding the inaccuracy of the reporting of figures for fatalities and the fact that advisors are now recognising that the strategy of herd immunity is a turning point. The cracks are starting to appear. Once the full story comes out in a parliamentary enquiry, I have no doubt that the extent of failings will be proved to be even more significant and it is inconceivable that heads will not roll. The death of NHS workers and the disgraceful situation in care homes is already prompting outrage. The lack of PPE is nothing short of a national scandal and it is staggering that we are having to import the gear from countries like Turkey. This is indicative of a nation that has sacrificed its manufacturing industry for a service-driven economy. We are no longer capable of producing what we need. I would suggest that the next problem will be the Govt's App which is being trialled on the Isle of Wight. As I understand it, only two countries, France and UK, have decided not to employ the App produced by the likes of Google in America. Boris is implementing a piece of technology devised by the NHS and the concern is that their record of success with IT is non-existent. There was an interesting feature on this on Channel Four news earlier in the week. I would also expect that any enquiry will not only look at the Govt's strategy in February but is likely to go beyond this and consider just how much austerity contributed to the problems. If the likes of Cummings is found to have had too much of an influence in the government's strategy or that medical and scientific advice offered up appears to have been discounted, Hancock will certainly go and I could imagine Boris being coaxed to resign by his colleagues because he will have become poison for the electorate. I think any future enquiry is going to show that Boris is not up to the job. Regardless of anyone's political bias, there is a strong consensus that this current government has let us down. I have not encountered one person in the last six weeks who believes the whole epidemic has not been handled in a way that is less than catastrophic by the current government. Without doubt, this has been extremely difficult for all politicians with even the likes of Macron surprisingly handling the matter poorly in France. There is no doubt that that epidemic will have a massive political fall-out and I think it will spell the end of "populist politicians." Don't expect Trump, Johnson, Putin or Bolsonaro to come out of the situation unscathed. The interesting fall out for me is already starting to happen and that is that people have woken up to the fact that a massive weakness has been found with market led economies. Care workers and NHS staff are starting to be recognised and the merits of shop-workers, train and bus drivers, postmen, refuge collectors, cleaners, etc are now far more appreciated. The other major sea change will now be how people work. The demand for office space will tank as more people start working from home. This will have an impact upon construction and also on parts of the economy like car sales where people are now less likely to commute to their office. Pension companies with large property portfolios including shopping centres and offices will also suffer. I read somewhere that it is now anticipated that liquid currency is likely to be a thing of the past as everyone moves over to electronic means of payment. I would be interested to see whether, when the economy recovers, there will be a redressing of the balance towards manufacturing. The kind of economy that Boris represents looks likely to be swept aside post-pandemic and it is difficult to see how the Thatcherite market led economy can retain traction. We have already seen massive state funding in the NHS in the last month (admittedly much too late) and measures such as the furlough scheme to support workers. Any future economy that emerges will, by necessity, be driven by the public sector and central spending.
Unfortunately I don't think the consensus is there. There is an elephant in the room and people's opinion on the situation seems to fall along the lines of the dreaded B word which dominated politics during the previous 3 years and somehow any criticism is perceived as an attack on that, which it really isn't. It shouldn't be about party politics, there should be just as much anger towards this as there was for Blair and the Iraq War. I wish I had as much faith as you for any sort of accountability once this is over. But divided politics and apathy rule modern day society and nobody can be arsed. Seriously, imagine a Health Minister coming out and telling manipulated bare faced lies about the number of tests and literally receive no pressure at all, even when the last 3 days number of tests has shown what an utter fabrication it was.
I agree with most of what you have said Ian. The British economy to a degree has left the manufacturing side of things to others over the years. Where as in the past that is what made this country. I have been saying this for years. I believe the fact we are going to have to start manufacturing again and very quickly. I just hope we start as soon as we can get back to work.
Well one bit of good news is, Norton Motorcycles has found a buyer. Let’s hope the new owners are passionate about making bikes rather than just about making money. Britain’s economy has become over reliant on the giant Ponzi scheme that is the City of London, but we do still retain some engineering, design and development capacity.
Unfortunately there's a lost generation of skills needed to quickly start manufacturing again. That's in a number of countries. I've been in demand although retired in the instrumentation and control systems field here in the Netherlands. Establishing plant, staffing them and attracting the investment to begin with isn't going to happen overnight.
I agree but there is stirrings of possible small business's starting up after the lockdown. I am talking locally mind not national. Doing exactly what I don’t know. I think the government our going to have to help people like this. If we do finally pull out of Europe there will be a good few opportunities to do this.
If we stayed in Europe there would be more opportunities for investment, manufacturing, sales and distribution plus being able to attract the missing skills. Do tell us what benefits to manufacturing being out of Europe on what looks increasingly likely WTO terms will bring. Please be specific, no generalisations.
The way Matt Hancock responded to Dr. Rosena Allin-Khan is an absolute disgrace and it just proves the point that inside every slippery government minister there is a very nasty piece of work. He can't justify behaviour like that, and even though many might look at him as one of the more acceptable faces in this government, he has shown himself as being no better than the rest of the callous rabble he works with. They don't care about us. They only care about themselves. When this virus pandemic started I think many people were willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt . The longer this goes on, the more we learn about the way these people are mishandling the response to this epidemic. Expecting the NHS staff to work without adequate protection and lying about the true facts and figures regarding the number of deaths proves this a sham of a government run by chancers and money grabbers. People don't matter to them. Corporate capitalism is their religion and we are just there to serve their money making machine. I agree with much of what you say Ian but I am more inclined to run with what Treble wrote. There is far too much apathy in this country for any meaningful change to happen. My feeling is that people will just slot back into an adjusted life and carry on pretty much as they were. Any enquiry into the handling of this pandemic by our government will be toothless and will change nothing. We are all in the grip of a right wing government who only serve the billionaire club and they have a steel like grip on the majority of wealth. To change that and to bring about a fair and equitable society it will take a social upheaval with massive and prolonged civil disobedience, strikes across all sectors of business and a willingness by all of us to sacrifice some of the comforts we have become accustomed to over the years. I would love that to happen but my view is that people accept things the way they are and are too fearful of too much change. We are heading for an ever increasingly unjust society where the divide between those who have very little and those who have far too much is going to grow ever wider. We are likely to become like the USA where even middle America is being squeezed and bled dry by the financial elite.
I can forsee big trouble for the housing market. Mortgages agreed to couples are going to get withdrawn when one partner either loses their income or has it reduced. Add to that those already mortgaged heavily will struggle to keep up the payments. Buy to let landlords are going to fall into arrears with mortgages when tenants cannot pay their rents. The outcome of all this is that we could see unprecedented falls in house values. Who could have seen the property boom ending in this manner?
Well said Kaits, Hancock is an absolute tool and needs pulling up at every opportunity. PMQs today 12:00 will be interesting, if spaffalot turns up I'm hoping Keir Starmer goes for the throat on the tory numbers lies and deceit.
On the other hand, interest rates are likely to remain fractionally above zero for a long time yet, so the supply of cheap money isn't going to dry up. I have been arguing for a long time, that the answer to the housing crisis is for councils to be empowered to build housing for affordable rent, on a sacale last seen in the 50s and 60s. No council of any political persuasion will do that if they are then forced to sell the homes they've built at well below market rate. Housing policy in this country us a disaster. It needs to be placed tight at the top of the social agenda, and the idea of a home as an investment needs to be secondary to the absolute need and tight to secure, affordable housing for all. I honestly don't see change on that scale being initiated by a Tory government, but Harold McMillan's government built more council houses than any other in British history, so who knows?
It must be about a year, or so, ago that I read an article about councils wanting to borrow money from the government, to build council houses. They were told that they could, but at an interest rate far greater than if they were borrowing for other uses, which would mean cutting services to repay the loan. As a result the councils didn’t proceed. But to quote, I believe, George Osborne, council houses breed Labour voters, so getting support from a Tory government to increase council housing by the numbers needed is pretty much a lost cause, IMO.
