Vote on extending lockdown powers next week

[Fambo Number Mive]

MPs will vote next week on plans to extend some lockdown powers for another six months.

The legislation gives authorities and police powers to regulate public gatherings, close premises, and force people to self-isolate.

They also include powers for the Health Secretary to shut down individual events, gatherings, shops or restaurants if they pose a particular risk.

But it also supports pandemic safety nets like protecting renters from eviction and ensuring sick-pay for people who are self-isolating...

Ex Cabinet minister David Davis added: "The Coronavirus Act contains some of the most draconian powers ever introduced in the UK.

"Thankfully, the crisis point of the pandemic has passed. So it is now time to roll back the extensive powers unwisely handed over to the State."

You'd think these Tory MPs would call for measures to be put in to reduce the need for another lockdown if they were so concerned, like making masks compulsory on public transport and in shops and improving ventilation in schools, but of course that would alienate the death cult Tory base, who don't care how many people die so long as they aren't inconvenienced in the slightest. I suspect a lot of them look at Mumsnet and the idiots on there who call mask wearing "theatre" and basically say "well I don't think masks help" without giving any reasons why.

Dawn Butler is against renewing the current Coronavirus Act as it stands:

...Brent MP Dawn Butler said it was "wrong" for the Government "threatening to extend it again".

"The Coronavirus Act is a blanket of draconian, unaccountable powers the Government has wrapped itself in," she tweeted.

"It's wrong that this Govt is threatening to extend again. It's outdated and unfit for purpose. @uklabour & Tory rebels must vote against it's time [to] replace it with something better, fairer and more transparent."...

Perhaps she could propose a replacement Act. The problem with Labour proposing a replacement Act is that none of the Tories will back it and it won't pass the Commons, and we risk being left with nothing, which I think is dangerous going into this winter.

And those comments by David Davies. The crisis point has passed? We haven't even hit winter and hospitals are already struggling. And he doesn't seem to think we should have had any lockdowns at all with his "extensive powers unwisely handed over to the State"

England seems to be full of incredibility selfish people who don't care about the welfare of others (not including Dawn in this, although I do think Labour opposing the renewal of the Coronavirus Act would be a mistake.). A load of little arseholes who get annoyed about a picture of the Queen being taken down in a student common room while continuing to support a government with blood on its hands. They won't wear a mask on the bus for half an hour because of MY FREEDOMS (yes I know some people can't wear a mask for medical reasons) but are furious that someone said something slightly critical about "The Tiger Who Came To Sea."

[Drygate]

Or they think lock downs and some other measures being proposed are more harmful to the population than the alternative?

I can't believe their only motivation is that they don't care if people die as long as they're not inconvenienced in the slightest.

I know they're Tories but, that seems a bit much?

[Fambo Number Mive]

If they don't agree with lockdowns, they should be helping take measures to mitigate the need for lockdowns.

They should have opposed the July 19th relaxing of masks rules which have seen a decrease in masks locally over the past six weeks. They could have called for windows to be locked open on buses to stop idiots closing them and reducing the flow of air. Vaccination mandates for nightclubs and other high risk areas would mean that only double jabbed people could attend, thereby reducing transmission.

And in schools, making masks compulsory when inside school buildings and on public transport to and from school would help reduce cases. They should have spent the last eighteen months going round every school in the country working out how ventilation could be improved in every classroom, hallway and other room (e.g. staffroom, library etc).

They could have done more to urge their constituents get jabbed, given over 10% of over 16s haven't even had a first jab yet. Given the JCVI's recommendations now mean that less people will have access to the jab than many other countries, even America, it's even more vital all over 16s who can get jabbed and all over 18s who can get double jabbed.


Instead they've done nothing to support a sensible middle way between lockdown and letting in rip. These Tory MPs claim to care about the mental health effects of lockdown, but they didn't seem to care at all about mental health before the pandemic, including the lack of proper funding for mental health care, despite their party having been in power since 2010. They've totally failed to regulate gambling advertising which damages people's mental health and financial security. I don't believe these people care about the health of the wider population.

If we want to help avoid another lockdown, people need to be as COVID cautious as possible on a personal basis. Unless they cannot for medical reasons, they should wear a mask (and consider double masking) on public transport, at work, at school and in shops, get both jabs if they are over 18, and the first jab if 16-18, get the flu jab, do lateral flow tests twice a week and realise that the list of symptoms for the Delta varient is greater than the three on the government website. Why the government haven't recognised that symptoms such as a sore throat can also be signs of covid and updated the website I do not understand, the government totally failed to answer the question.

As it stands, I think we are looking at at least another circuit breaker lockdown at the beginning of December, and possibly a four week lockdown in January. I hope we do not need another lockdown, but it's not looking good. The delays to flu vaccine delivery didn't help.

[Fambo Number Mive]

There are things we can do to reduce the impact of another lockdown on the population. Properly fund mental health care, increase sick pay to make it affordable for people to isolate (which might also help prevent another lockdown), keep the Universal Credit £20 uplift, ensure every household with children has access to a good laptop and broadband connection, improvement enforcement of lockdown regulations, weekly updates from the Prime Minister, more educational programmes on television for children whose learning is disrupted, consider shutting down non-essential online delivery services, bring back furlough but make it 100% (why should people be penalised for not being able to work during a pandemic?), call for tech giants to do more to delete accounts that pedal COVID denial and antivax nonsense and not have the "only go out for exercise once a day" rule - I think that was counterproductive.

Tory MPs won't call for most of that, however.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

The initial emergency stage of the epidemic is over though, so the Act should not be renewed. Dawn Butler, David Davis and co are right. The government should come up with a new bill with new, more proportionate powers appropriate for the current stage of the pandemic.

[Fambo Number Mive]

What powers should this new Act have which are different from the current act? The emergency stage may be over at the moment, but that was thought last summer and a few months later we needed the same powers again for another shutdown.

[olliebean]

What is the point of the government having special powers to enact emergency measures immediately when needed, without having to wait for parliamentary approval, when they have invariably sat on their hands for a couple of weeks before enacting any necessary measures?

[Fambo Number Mive]

They'd probably sit on their hands for even longer if they needed to rely on the support of their MPs every time they needed to enact emergency measures, given how Johnson is worried about upsetting the libertarian rump of the Tory party. It would be more democratic to give MPs a vote on this each time but it could also mean a further delay to lockdown measures or restrictions being brought in.

[danwho9]

They'd probably sit on their hands for even longer if they needed to rely on the support of their MPs every time they needed to enact emergency measures, given how Johnson is worried about upsetting the libertarian rump of the Tory party.

A libertarian Tory? First I've heard of that.