ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

what happened to operation moonshat

and rishi where's my fucking 500£ PS5 voucher

They’re still trying for moonspaff from what I read in the graun the other day, linked with these saliva kits. No way theyll be able to handle the logistics tho

Like we’re too dysfunctional to do regular t&t

There will almost certainly be support. Inadequate support, but nevertheless..

What it may not stop is the Xmas spike because er, schools are staying open..

Is there any reliable data on how much transmission is happening in schools?

Fuck I forgot about my free PlayStation, wankers

Dunno about schools but unis are also exempt which seems worse

Tho I guess the damage is done there

Lots of quotes from science people but schools not discussed at all. I'd like to see some rationale for it, especially if covid is playing havoc with all age groups.

because the UK govt is very concerned about the mental health and education of children, especially the poorest ones.

They could've done it with half-term as one of the four weeks 🤦

At the same time if anything should stay open this time that wasn't open last time it's probably schools - delaying your university education by a year is a lot less damaging than further delaying school education at a crucial point in development.

But only if there's a credible plan for keeping schools open safely and protecting people who live in multi-generational households, which there transparently isn't.

Sending students all over the country from covid infested halls also probably not a great idea right now and lord knows being in lockdown in halls must be a miserable experience.

The ongoing problem is that there is no alternative for school-age learners. They’ve had months to put a robust online learning strategy in place and haven’t even distributed a third of the promised laptops yet.

The universities face financial ruin if learning is suspended and fees refunded. They’re better positioned to teach online in most cases though.

They were floating the idea of a strictly enforced 2 week quarantine for uni students in early December so they could come home for the holidays right?

Yeah that'll work

"delaying your university education by a year is a lot less damaging than further delaying school education at a crucial point in development."

If schools are a vector of transmission there should be more of a strategy around this. Attended a Lab union call and someone from the teaching unions was saying how many schools in a lot of places are partially shutting due to covid outbreaks and the extent of it has been underreported.

If the government gave a fuck about child development a programme could've been developed to mitigate against impacts. Maybe you could have children going once or twice a week? It requires planning and work, which isn't on the menu with these people in charge xps

yeah i mean

Not sure going once or twice a week would make much difference given it only takes a short time to transmit the virus, and schools necessarily involve the same people seeing each other every day anyway.

let’s be honest, the reason they want to keep a schools open is so that parents won’t have an excuse to stay at home and avoid putting their lives on the line to keep the economy from asphyxiating entirely

my son's transport escort had to do two weeks of self-isolation when someone she worked with tested positive, yet when she told the school her kids attend they said: no biggie, they don't need to self-isolate as well. I don't know if she has got it wrong or that is how ridic the rules are.

my daughter's a TA at a special school and nah they seem to be pretty fast and loose with the bubbles

my feeling is that head teachers view closure as a failure - that they didn’t do enough, that students didn’t adhere to policy etc - so they will bend whatever roles they can in order to stay open

rules

I have loads of friends working on special schools and they have told me some pretty insane stories throughout

Not sure going once or twice a week would make much difference given it only takes a short time to transmit the virus, and schools necessarily involve the same people seeing each other every day anyway.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 31 October 2020 bookmarkflaglink

From my understanding of what the union rep was saying it could be more of a rota where so many kids go in on a day for set hours.

Anyway, what struck me is that none of this was ever worked through.

this is a crass generalisation but in my experience a lot of headteachers are real dicks

There seemed to be about 5000 art students wandering around Camberwell yesterday. They were mostly wearing masks but still in the usual gormless pavement-blocking throngs

It was the first time since about April that I'd felt the "oh no, people are within 2 metres of me" nervousness that had otherwise faded away from becoming jaded and going to the office a lot

I can’t find the cite now but there was a study showing the most you g kids were catching it from adults, not the other way around. Primary schools seem safe to keep open they said, much less clear about secondary and up.

real déjà vu the last weeks hearing about how we’re on a similar trajectory to France, hmmm it’s getting p bad in France, looks like France is heading for lockdown, hey maybe we should do something to get ahead of this... lads? Anything?

The one thing that will absolutely not happen is Westminster acknowledging that there's anything to be learned from foreigners.

xxp Yeah, Edinburgh is not a relaxing place to be walking around now.

The timing of the lockdown is driven by NHS capacity more than anything else, isn’t it? They’re just going to keep going in and out of lockdown when it looks like hospitals aren’t going to be able to cope with the numbers.

Well yeah, and that’s obviously one key factor (but not the only one) but it would be nice to feel they were being proactive rather than purely reactive in that regard, because it honestly feels like virus brinkmanship atm

And it’s more damaging to their beloved economy to leave it this late every time.

Pesto with the details:

These are the measures to be announced by the PM at 5, as I understand it. They will last 2 December. And they are, In effect, a new “Tier 4” that will be imposed for a month initially to the whole of England. 1) All pubs and restaurants to close, though takeaways...

— Robert Peston (@Peston) October 31, 2020

what a shambles

Would it really have been too much to ask for *some* sort of planning to be in place - pilot schemes of rota systems, year group breaks, remote-teaching guidance - as opposed to this shitshow of leaving it up to individual head-teachers to sort out? If the fuckwits hadn't removed all aspects of coursework, in the guise of making exams more 'rigorous', we'd be in a much better position for next May/June, but as it stands, we're looking at a Y11 cohort that hasn't sat a single exam, and for whom we have barely any academic data from which to extrapolate (invent) exam results.

As it stands, my union (NEU) is proposing a total closure of schools and colleges, with a move into a rota system post-Dec 2nd. I'm conflicted because at a national level, I don't think it's fair to stay open and, given the state of us all at the end of last term, remotely sustainable in terms of physical and mental health (on top of anything rona-related). But, at a student level, the knock-on effects academically are vast - particularly for Y10&11 - and the impact on mental health is unknowable, but as a parent I can safely say, all things being equal (yes, I know) it's better for kids to be in school. Also, I don't want to go back to teaching remotely because it's bollocks.

All that said,

Hastily rearranged post leaves mysterious rhetorical flourish that leads nowhere...

I still have friends in #Spoons. All of the employees have just received comms regarding the impending lockdown.
This is a clause in something they are being told to sign.
Fuck Tim Martin pic.twitter.com/fqjwHfJO50

— Wee Mowgz (@mowgzilla1) October 30, 2020

What a cunt.

And look at this shit.

"5) Travel within the UK will be discouraged, except for work. 6) Overnight stays away from home will be allowed only for work purposes..."

evil

Fuck Spoons and especially fuck Tim Martin.

Press conference cancelled, can’t wait for cartoon avi stupid journalist to fart out some more leaks.

Press conference delayed to 6.30! I'm sure they're thrashing out some last-minute details regarding furlough though so all's well.

too busy watching the rugby no doubt

This is gonna fuck with Strictly, that should lose them a few votes

Liverpool local authorities were already improving before tier 3 was introduced and generally increasingly so since then. pic.twitter.com/3LZIOKWZdE

— Richard 📊📉 (@RP131) October 31, 2020

I found this useful:

https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-and-a-class-how-the-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html

Not sure it's the best thread for it.

Anyway, amused by a Peston Tweet that the government doesn't want the new "lockdown" to be called a "lockdown" but "tougher national measures."

This is hilarious:

Message being sent to MPs this afternoon - clearly written with one eye on the fact it'll be made public pic.twitter.com/i9dpnPVDGA

— CatNeilan (@CatNeilan) October 31, 2020

So sorry you heard about the lockdown through the press, we are tracking down the culprit who will also be blamed for us leaking all the details to Peston in about six hours’ time,

Best Boris

The other Borises (Borii) were busy (drunk)