Bournemouth crowds

[Barry Admin]

Pretty sure it's been said in other threads, but I'm like 99% sure the vagueness is by design.  They're trying to tell people not to follow any rules at all, under the radar.  Even encouraging them to break them, via Cummings's stunt.

It has, yes, and here's another example I posted in the 2m thread which speaks to this:

Another example of them being told what'll happen, and just not fucking caring:

Ministers were warned by senior policing figures on the eve of chaotic scenes at beaches last week that lifting the lockdown is "madness" and risks prompting fresh disorder.

During a meeting last Wednesday with police and crime commissioners, the Home Office minister Kit Malthouse was told that the decision to reopen pubs on 4 July could lead to increased violence and that coastal resorts could be overrun.

According to the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Labour's David Jamieson, Malthouse "brushed the concerns away". Jamieson said: "The issue was raised and it is total madness, we all know it's madness. Some of his [Malthouse's] Conservative colleagues raised it as well, particularly those on the coast."

The following day a major incident was declared after tens of thousands of people defied pleas to stay away and descended on beaches in Bournemouth, while police were attacked at illegal street parties in Brixton and Notting Hill in London.

...

Jamieson said that the government should have planned to reopen pubs midweek or on a Monday in order to better manage pent-up demand and levels of emotion.

"We're not against lifting the lockdown – it's the way that we do it. To actually open the pubs on a midsummer Saturday night strikes me as a decision from people who are disastrously out of touch with reality. It's going to be very challenging – very, very challenging – that weekend," Jamieson warned.

He also took issue with Boris Johnson's language last Tuesday when the prime minister announced the easing of restrictions, in particular his promise to take England out of "national hibernation".

Another Labour police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness from Northumbria, questioned the need for Johnson to have made the announcement so far in advance.
"I do think we've seen people's behaviour change because of that messaging," she said.

Jamieson added: "What they're doing is irresponsible. They [the government] just haven't thought it through – they've thought through the politics of it but [not] the wider consequences for society."

A Home Office spokesperson said: "We recognise that as restrictions are carefully eased, we are trusting the public to comply with more subtle social restrictions. There is no excuse for violence, vandalism or disorderly behaviour and the police have our full support in cracking down on those who flout restrictions."

[Bronzy]

also true. I'm starting to wince a bit when I see the obligatory "hope all those people die" post

hope Bournemouth dies

[SpiderChrist]

hope Bournemouth dies

I hope everyone dies. I'm so tired.

[SpiderChrist]

Someone I know suggested to me that anyone on that beach who contracted coronavirus should be denied NHS treatment.

[BlodwynPig]

I hope and pray the Government is destroyed over this. Johnson in handcuffs being roughly shoved in the back of a police van as crowds surge toward him. He knows what he is doing.

[jobotic]

He's doing what Cummings tells him to do.

Thing is if there ever is another election and Starmer wins it, Cummings will probably stay in place.

[Head Gardener]

[Barry Admin]

Someone I know suggested to me that anyone on that beach who contracted coronavirus should be denied NHS treatment.

They sound a right cunt tbh.

[SpiderChrist]

They sound a right cunt tbh.

They're not, to be honest. But they were very very angry, both at those who trashed the beach at Bournemouth and the government that tacitly encouraged it, which are valid stances.

[Uncle TechTip]

In this scenario, i find it extremely arrogant to expect people to stay at home, in these circumstances, in this weather, when government advice was to get to open spaces, and surely the risk is lowest at a windy beach. If you personally don't accept the risk, you don't go. Expecting people to carry on like this is cruel.

[dissolute ocelot]

Everyone violates the lockdown and everybody gets very angry about other people doing it. The number of times I've seen angry posts on Facebook from people I know have broken the rules in the previous 24 hours.

Obviously people should take their litter home, but even then it's only a small minority, most people will more or less pick up their litter and more or less social distance, but it only takes a few people with a shitload of beer and pizza and bum-flowers to fuck up a beach. The idea that people shouldn't go to the beach and observe social distance because other people are shitting in boxes is wrongheaded and wouldn't be accepted in most other circumstances (people fuck up beaches every year but nobody talks about closing beaches or banning British people from Spain). It's just COVID making everybody shitty and angry and depressed.

[EOLAN]

In this scenario, i find it extremely arrogant to expect people to stay at home, in these circumstances, in this weather, when government advice was to get to open spaces, and surely the risk is lowest at a windy beach. If you personally don't accept the risk, you don't go. Expecting people to carry on like this is cruel.

Probably akin to keeping your lights on during a blackout for a bombing raid. Obviously you are happy to accept the risk of being bombed as a result; but there could also be 'collateral damage' due to your personal choice.
Although; in fairness to the actual people; they didn't break any of the guidelines or examples set by their leaders.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

In this scenario, i find it extremely arrogant to expect people to stay at home, in these circumstances, in this weather, when government advice was to get to open spaces, and surely the risk is lowest at a windy beach. If you personally don't accept the risk, you don't go. Expecting people to carry on like this is cruel.

No. There's a global pandemic, still. People need to be told clearly what to do. I won't divulge the nature of my job but I've been doing it for twelve years, and one thing I've learned over that time is that people need to be saved from themselves. If you have wishy-washy, open-ended guidelines with a ton of latitude, people will go as far as they can within the confines of those guidelines with no thought of consequences for themselves, their future or the people around them.

And it suits the government to let people do that. Even our government, which up to now was led by an actual doctor, is moving towards "ye're all responsible for yerselves and yer own safety now lads", issuing contradictory instructions like "work from home as much as possible but ye can go back to yer boxing and wrestling training and 50-person parties now". Because then if people get sick and die it's their own fault for not following such clear advice as "stay alert, control the virus, save lives". Not the government's fault for mishandling the pandemic, for systematically defunding the healthcare system, for moving too slowly to lockdown way back at the beginning. Don't forget that the end goal is back to normal as quick as possible. No time to reflect, no time to discuss and consider whether we (the global we) need to make drastic changes to how we live and work and what we spend taxpayer money on.

[Zetetic]

I won't divulge the nature of my job but I've been doing it for twelve years, and one thing I've learned over that time is that people need to be saved from themselves. If you have wishy-washy, open-ended guidelines with a ton of latitude, people will go as far as they can within the confines of those guidelines with no thought of consequences for themselves, their future or the people around them.

Parking attendant?
Cinema usher?
Funeral director?

[idunnosomename]

it's gone from 8D chess to being so transparent in tactics they're just chucking the pawns at us now

[Gregory Torso]

cba

[Sebastian Cobb]

We should get some of those Indian police squads down on the beach to birch people until they leave.

[Poisson Du Jour]

Everyone violates the lockdown and everybody gets very angry about other people doing it. The number of times I've seen angry posts on Facebook from people I know have broken the rules in the previous 24 hours.

In this scenario, i find it extremely arrogant to expect people to stay at home, in these circumstances, in this weather, when government advice was to get to open spaces, and surely the risk is lowest at a windy beach. If you personally don't accept the risk, you don't go. Expecting people to carry on like this is cruel.

Bit too much empathy and level-headedness here for my tastes. It was better when posters were condemning everyone they saw when they were outside every day. I've got four days at the beach booked for end of July. But I'm different from all those crowds, because I'm me.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I haven't been anywhere but the corner shop round the corner, the lidl a brief cycle away and one trip to work to box up some visors since lockdown started. I'm not even risking exercise. I can go nearly a week without leaving my front door at all.