Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%

  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%
  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
West WindsR said:
I’m saying that some sex case running a Trump cheerleader Twitter account is hardly a reliable source. What about all the utter gibberish Trump has gifted us with over the last four years? I’m not saying Biden is 100% all there by any means as he’s an old man but have some balance if you’re going to dig out Biden against that fat orange nonce.
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Trump talks crap and he made a mistake describing a drug as did I and my mate when talking about it. Trump over inflate facts and figures and comes out with laughable rubbish... however he is not senile or anything like Biden and cognitive.
By the way the two news items were from Sky News Australia and not some sex case. If you had listened to the first video the reporters says people can't keep accusing right-wing groups for Biden's mistakes.
 
West WindsR said:
It’s exactly the sort of utterly irrelevant nonsense every right wing mouthpiece on Twitter has been posting as if it’s some sort of wisdom to justify your Party’s scandalous ideological decision to not feed vulnerable kids, you berk.
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I can't understand why you are on here when in Germany? Can't you go to a museum or some art Gallery or something? Seriously mate get out and enjoy the cultural milieu.
 
ELLERS said:
I can't understand why you are on here when in Germany? Can't you go to a museum or some art Gallery or something? Seriously mate get out and enjoy the cultural milieu.
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I’m in Austria. Museums don’t tend to open at night. Stop parroting stupid right wing ****s.
 
West WindsR said:
I’m in Austria. Museums don’t tend to open at night. Stop parroting stupid right wing ****s.
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Austria! Okay Baron von Crap. Get out and listen to the Sound of Music rather than boring me on here. I have an excuse I'm working and need a bit of an escapism. By the way I don't parrot anyone I just see things as they are. I once heard Charlotte Church speaking (on TV) at an anti-capitalist demo watched by her adoring designer cladded activists. She then hoped off into a limo and flew off in a private jet. Not exactly one of the people is she? Rashford has done some good things but he still earns £200K a week. How many of those poor kids can watch him for free? You don't have to be right-wing to notice a few things.
 
Oh so it’s Rashfords fault for not giving all his money away, ****ing hell. What next? Why didn’t major Tom auction off his Zimmer?
 
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Covid-19 investigationsJonathan Sumption


Covid measures will be seen as 'monument of collective hysteria and folly' says ex-judge
Jonathan Sumption, former British supreme court justice, slams ‘cavalier use of coercive powers’ and ‘loss of freedom’

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Lord Sumption criticises ‘a loss of effective parliamentary scrutiny of emergency Covid powers’. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer
Lord Sumption criticises ‘a loss of effective parliamentary scrutiny of emergency Covid powers’. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent
@owenbowcott
Tue 27 Oct 2020 18.00 GMT
Last modified on Wed 28 Oct 2020 04.36 GMT

  • Jonathan Sumption.

    In his most forceful critique to date of the government’s handling of the pandemic, the outspoken lawyer condemned the way “the British state exercised coercive powers over its citizens on a scale never previously attempted”.



    Delivering the Cambridge Freshfields annual law lecture, Lord Sumption said: “The ease with which people could be terrorised into surrendering basic freedoms which are fundamental to our existence … came as a shock to me in March 2020.”

    He is not the only former judge recently to lament the loss of effective parliamentary scrutiny of emergency Covid powers. Last month Lady Hale, former president of the supreme court, alleged that MPs and peers had surrendered their role during the coronavirus pandemic.

    In his address Sumption said the emergency measures were “the most significant interference with personal freedom in the history of our country”.

    He stated: “I do not doubt the seriousness of the epidemic, but I believe that history will look back on the measures taken to contain it as a monument of collective hysteria and governmental folly.”

    The government, he noted, had already tried to avoid parliamentary scrutiny during Brexit by proroguing parliament, a procedure subsequently ruled unlawful by the supreme court last year.

    “Governments hold power in Britain on the sufferance of the elected chamber of the legislature,” Sumption argued. “Without that we are no democracy. The present government has a different approach. It seeks to derive its legitimacy directly from the people, bypassing their elected representatives.”

    Sage, the government’s panel of expert scientific advisers, he said, had this year noted: “Citizens should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.” That warning, Sumption said, had been ignored.

    Powers under the Public Health Act “were not intended to authorise measures as drastic as those which have been imposed”, Sumption added. The reason that legislation was exploited, he suspected, was that “the degree of scrutiny provided for under the Public Health Act is limited”.

    When the law was introduced in the 1980s, he said, its powers were mainly directed at controlling the behaviour of infected people.

    Announcing the first lockdown, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had indulged in a “bluff”, Sumption said. “Even on the widest view of the legislation the government had no power to give such orders without making statutory regulations. No such regulations existed until 1 pm on 26 March, three days after the announcement.”

    The government’s behaviour, Sumption told his audience, was characterised by “a cavalier disregard for the limits of their legal powers”.

    A combination of “government advice and government-inspired pressure from regulators” had been used to limit access to doctors. This, Sumption said, had “had a serious impact on the diagnosis and early treatment of far more mortal diseases than Covid-19, notably cancer”.

    Quick Guide
    What are the three tiers of England's Covid lockdown system?
    Show
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    Tier one – medium
    • The “rule of six” applies, meaning socialising in groups larger than six people is prohibited whether indoors or outdoors.
    • Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work and are not counted as being part of the six-person limit.
    • Businesses and venues can continue to operate but pubs and restaurants must ensure customers only consume food and drink while seated, and close between 10pm and 5am.
    • Takeaway food can continue to be sold after 10pm if ordered by phone or online.
    • Schools and universities remain open.
    • Places of worship remain open but people must not mingle in a group of more than six.
    • Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people who can attend (15 and 30 respectively).
    • Exercise classes and organised sport can continue to take place outdoors, and – if the rule of six is followed – indoors.
    Tier two – high
    • People are prohibited from socialising with anybody outside their household or support bubble in any indoor setting.
    • Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work.
    • The rule of six continues to apply for socialising outdoors, for instance in a garden or public space like a park or beach.
    • Businesses and venues can continue to operate but pubs and restaurants must ensure customers only consume food and drink while seated, and close between 10pm and 5am.
    • Takeaway food can continue to be sold after 10pm if ordered online or by phone.
    • Schools and universities remain open.
    • Places of worship remain open but people must not mingle in a group of more than six.
    • Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people who can attend (15 and 30 respectively).
    • Exercise classes and organised sport can continue to take place outdoors but will only be permitted indoors if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with those they do not live with (or share a support bubble with), or for youth or disability sport.
    • Travel is permitted to amenities that are open, for work or to access education, but people are advised to reduce the number of journeys where possible.
    Tier three – very high
    • People are prohibited from socialising with anybody they do not live with, or have not formed a support bubble with, in any indoor setting, private garden or at most outdoor hospitality venues and ticketed events.
    • Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work.
    • The rule of six continues to apply to outdoor public spaces, such as parks, beaches, public gardens or sports venues.
    • Pubs and bars are only permitted to remain open to operate as restaurants, in which case alcohol can only be served as part of a substantial meal.
    • Schools and universities remain open.
    • Places of worship remain open but household mixing is not permitted.
    • Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people attending (15 and 30 respectively) but wedding receptions are not allowed.
    • The rules for exercise classes and organised sport are the same as in tier 2. They can continue to take place outdoors but will only be permitted indoors if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with people they do not live with (or share a support bubble with), or for youth or disability sport. However, in Merseyside, gyms were ordered to close when it entered tier 3.
    • Travelling outside a very high alert level area or entering a very high alert level area should be avoided other than for things such as work, education or youth services, to meet caring responsibilities or if travelling through as part of a longer journey.
    • Residents of a tier 3 area should avoid staying overnight in another part of the UK, while people who live in a tier 1 or tier 2 area should avoid staying overnight in a very high alert level area.
    The police had repeatedly exceeded their powers, he suggested. “When I ventured to criticise them in a BBC interview for acting beyond their powers I received a letter from the Derbyshire police commissioner objecting to my remarks on the ground that in a crisis such things were necessary. The implication was that in a crisis the police were entitled to do whatever they thought fit, without being unduly concerned about their legal powers. That is my definition of a police state.”

    By using “propaganda”, he said, the government had “to some extent been able to create its own public opinion – fear was deliberately stoked up by the government”.

    And being a libertarian, he said, had become a term of abuse. “The public’s fear effectively silenced opposition in the House of Commons. The official opposition did not dare to challenge the government, except to suggest that they should have been even tougher even quicker.”

    Sumption concluded: “The British public has not even begun to understand the seriousness of what is happening to our country. Many, perhaps most of them don’t care, and won’t care until it is too late. They instinctively feel that the end justifies the means, the motto of every totalitarian government which has ever been … The government has discovered the power of public fear to let it get its way.”
 
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