Boris announcing in House of Commons now

Sparklefizz

GG13 I am not excusing Mr Cummings or any rule breakers by the way, it is just a totally weak excuse to say because so and so did that I can do this

I totally agree.

I'm not saying that it's a good excuse. I'm just saying that people will use it. Because that's the way some people are.

If you're a leader you will be despised and disliked if you expect the people you lead to do things that you're not prepared to do. And some will defy you if they get the chance. It's basic psychology, for heaven's sake.

You’re right Lemon.
Individual responsibility is the key if we’re to avoid a total lockdown.
A total lockdown will destroy our economy and the result will be far worse than the pandemic itself.
A total lockdown will slow the virus but as soon as we come out of it, off we’ll go again.
If we all imagine what we’d do if we have the virus and act accordingly to protect others we may stand a chance.
While we live with selfish and stupid this will go on and on.

A total lockdown will destroy our economy and the result will be far worse than the pandemic itself.

What do you think that carrying on as we are will do? The infection rate is racing upwards, hospitalisations are rising and the death rate is rising, too. How will hospitals cope if we continue at the current rate?
And how will the economy fare if more and more people are off sick, and are unable to work if they suffer long term effects?

The government isn't borrowing money, it's just issuing it straight from the Bank of England. With proper support for businesses that will remain viable once the pandemic is more controlled, and with help and retraining for people who won't be able to continue in their work, we should be able to weather it. We can live with a deficit; what is essential is to keep money flowing in the domestic economy.

A total lockdown will slow the virus but as soon as we come out of it, off we’ll go again.

But no-one is suggesting that a total lockdown is the complete answer. We need to fix the dismal test, track and trace; give local authorities the support they need to run their far more efficient operations; otherwise any measures are pointless. We need to reinforce social distancing, mask wearing and ventilation, too.

You are right, lockdown by itself won't solve the problem.

I do not believe there is any evidence that Northerners as a whole are ignoring lockdown rules while those of us in the south are paragons of virtue. Many of the students at Northern universities will come from the south and many students at southern universities are from the north.

I think many of the problems in the north lies in their history of early industrialisation and modern poverty. Small cramped over crowded houses a high proportion of multi generational families living together, a higher proportion of older people with all the health problems that result from that plus living in long term poverty.

There are a host of environmental, social and economic reasons why COVID is so prevalent in the old imdustrial heartlands of Britain just resorting to cliches about northerners is neither helpful nor true.

*Maizie We have a sovereign currency. The government can issue as much of it as it wants. It doesn't have to be 'borrowed' or paid back.

Yes it can, but it has effects that are very damaging tothe country. Money gets its value from the goods and services produced in a country. If you print more money since it still has to be supported by an unchanging amount of goods and services, so the prices of everything will go up and you have rampant inflation. Double the amount of money in the economy and prices will double.

In addition the price we have to pay for imports will go up and exports will reduce because foreign purchasers can buy the same products cheaper elsewhere. Lending agencies will reduce the class of our borrowing from AA, which I think it is at present, to junk status so that no-one will want to lend us money and the value of the £ will fall because our currency is now worth so much less, exacerbating the problem with paying more formore expensive imports and exporting less because our prices are too high. As the government prints more and more money we will have galloping inflation, sky high interest rates, high unemployment and economic collapse.

This is why the quantative easing programme conducted bythe Bank of England over the last 10 years has been so carefully and judiciously conducted so that the governments ability to help itself by printing money does not have the catastrophic effects listed above.

As things stand at present we are in a prolonged period of exceptionally low interest rates and they may go negative for some. The government can borrow money at an incredibly low rate so that it does little more than repay the money borrowed.

Yes, of course the government can print as much money as it wants, but if it could be done without very serious effect on the economy, every country in the world would be printing money hand over fist - and they aren't.

MOnica, your post at 08.29 today sums up my views on why the infection rate here in the north is high. There are so many environmental, social and economic reasons for the high rate here. I expect we (Gtr Manchester) will move into the red zone very soon. I'm pleased that Andy Burnham and the other northern mayors have resisted its imposition, without the necessary financial support.
All this nonsense from the government, pre covid, about a northern power house. Poor House they mean. Thatcher killed off our old industries and ten years of austerity has done nothing to improve things.

MOnica What the government then has to do is take that money out of circulation by taxation, which is a problem for a Conservative government, because it's against increasing taxes.

Spending into the economy always precedes taxation, not the other way round. More importantly, taxation can be used to redistribute wealth. The country can live with a degree of inflation.

^ If you print more money since it still has to be supported by an unchanging amount of goods and services, so the prices of everything will go up and you have rampant inflation.^

There is a lot more that can be done in the UK before that happens. We need much more investment in green infrastructure, in the NHS, in social care and in public services for a start. And, as growstuff says, inflation can be controlled by taxation if necessary.

There is no reason why goods and services should remain unchanged if there is a demand for them. They haven't been finite in the past, so why now?

Here's one service sector that will be massively expanded come 1st Jan 2021!

twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1316316827279142912

My daughter (who has defected to the South) sent me this card a few years ago:

maddyone Yes, I made them ?

MaizieD

^The Government do not have their own money to bail us out in the case of lockdown. They have our taxes and what they borrow; the latter has to be paid back and the former is not available if people aren't working.^

With respect, Icanhandthemback, you are wrong. We have a sovereign currency. The government can issue as much of it as it wants. It doesn't have to be 'borrowed' or paid back. We have very little foreign debt and what there is is historic. Since we came off the gold standard in 1971/2 we have had the freedom to issue whatever we want to. I think that the government actually understands that because they are handing out £billions in dodgy contracts and failed test, track & trace, absolutely willynilly.

They just don't want the public to understand it as it will give them an excuse to privatise the NHS and anything else that they can. And to impose austerity and tax increases on us little people who pay taxes... (not the tax evading billionaires, of course)

Much of our so called 'debt' is actually people's savings and investments, by way of bonds, premium bonds and National Savings. The rest is direct funding by the Bank of England. Taxes do help to pay for stuff, but low revenues from taxation aren't critical.

So, are you telling me that there is absolutely no effect of the Treasury just printing more money? If that were the case, I am sure that all Governments would be doing it or do we just wheel our money round in wheel barrows to buy our groceries because I am sure that sterling would be severely devalued.

I should have also thought that people's savings have to be paid back and I strongly suspect with the banks being told they need to think about negative on interest, I think that is a fund that is not going to be there for long.

The government can’t just print money with no debt, otherwise there would be no poor countries, they’d all be printing money off. They have to raise borrowed money eventually. We’ve only just finished paying off debts to the USA for WW2 loans

Johnson will certainly go down in the history books as the man who destroyed the union, who destroyed our economy by leaving the EU and unnecessarily destroyed so many lives through covid.

The man is a monster.

Oh come on WW2 - Hitler was "a monster" - you can't call Johnson that, however poorly you think he has handled things.

Whitewavemark2

Johnson will certainly go down in the history books as the man who destroyed the union, who destroyed our economy by leaving the EU and unnecessarily destroyed so many lives through covid.

The man is a monster.

What a ridiculous outrageous comment to make. The total lack of empathy for someone who has been so ill himself and is now in the unenviable position of leading the country in the middle of this pandemic only shows that the monster here is you. Perhaps you are arrogant enough to feel that you could do a better job but I very much doubt it.

Monster or not the rest of what WWM2 is correct is it not?

BJ didn't leave the EU WW2 he ensured that the result of the referendum, like it or not, was up help.

As for accusing him of "unnecessarily destroy(ing) so many lives through covid", I agree with Janpt it's a ridiculous and outrageous comment to make.

MayBee70

Monster or not the rest of what WWM2 is correct is it not?

Only in your and his typical left wing opinions.

Janpt

Whitewavemark2

Johnson will certainly go down in the history books as the man who destroyed the union, who destroyed our economy by leaving the EU and unnecessarily destroyed so many lives through covid.

The man is a monster.

What a ridiculous outrageous comment to make. The total lack of empathy for someone who has been so ill himself and is now in the unenviable position of leading the country in the middle of this pandemic only shows that the monster here is you. Perhaps you are arrogant enough to feel that you could do a better job but I very much doubt it.

The Johnson known as 'Al' or 'Alex' to his family and friends (although he has few friends) is pretty monstrous by all accounts including those of such luminaries of the Left as Max Hastings, his old boss at the Telegraph, Michael Howard, his sister Rachel, and a fair few who had to work with him as Mayor of London. He is lazy, he is a pathological liar, he is ruthlessly manipulative, he is chronically under-prepared, he doesn't care who gets hurt in his rush to get what he wants.

The Johnson known as 'Boris' is an act, a stage persona if you prefer. The plummy accent, the floppy hair, the hesitant speaking, the buffoonery; they are carefully cultivated, probably originally as a defence against school bullies and his overbearing father but found useful when bringing down the house at Conservative Party dinners. Johnson loves the limelight and the adoration of an audience. Poor lamb, he wanted to be PM so he could put his act on the world stage in a time of plenty (remember when 2016 wasn't the "right" time?) He planned his rise meticulously (the one time he's ever been on top of his brief, because it was all about himself) so that he could bask in a Brexit honeymoon, dispensing wisecracks and put-downs from the dispatch box, before things got tricky, then go off to America to make a mint on the lecture circuit. He got rid of people in his own party who might be awkward and he packed his cabinet with weaklings who would do his bidding to order (remember when he had them reciting for the TV cameras like a class of infants performing for the Chair of Governors?)

He didn't see Covid coming. He hadn't got a plan for something that needed gravitas not sunny wit, and he doesn't do gravitas. He rode for a while on popular goodwill even as he got sick himself – self-inflicted to some extent as he boasted of going round hospital wards shaking hands with Covid patients) and then as it became more and more apparent that behind the faux-Churchillian rhetoric there was no substance, only personal vanity. His number was up when Cummings went for the long-distance vision test.

Johnson missed a trick in his adoring emulation of Churchill. Churchill was one of a number of Conservative MPs in 1938-40 who knew that the only way to confront the menace of Hitler was for a coalition with Labour, but he was the only one of them who was both willing to overcome his instinctive distaste to work with Labour, and also acceptable to Labour. Contrary to popular myth (he wrote his own myth, he more or less admitted it) Churchill didn't win the war single-handed. Britain survived six years under siege and ultimately (with a lot of help from others) prevailed because Churchill gathered around him a brilliant team of all stripes and colours (if there was a single stroke of genius it was swallowing his pride and inviting Ernest Bevin, whom he destested, into his cabinet). That's the kind of approach that was needed against Covid.

LadyHenoriaDeadlock - fantastic post at 18.19 today. Thank you so much for this detailed, articulate and imo, spot on summary of the Boris Johnson.

Whitewave I may not conclude he's a monster, but otherwise, totally with your summary of Johnson.

Plus, thank heavens for the so called "Northern Mayors". Andy Burnham is a local hero. We need the circuit breaker suggested by Keir Starmer today. We also need financial support for our devastated areas and to support the lock down

LHD so pleased to see your excellent overview. It is so uplifting to read. Thank you

vegansrock

The government can’t just print money with no debt, otherwise there would be no poor countries, they’d all be printing money off. They have to raise borrowed money eventually. We’ve only just finished paying off debts to the USA for WW2 loans

No, most countries can't because their currency is somehow linked to external factors. For example, Venezuela's currency was linked to the petro-dollar and was heavily influenced (and destroyed) by the US.

Countries in the Eurozone can't print money either, but the UK can because sterling is sovereign.

This is what happens:

The Bank of England "prints" money and gives it to the government, which then spends it on something which is in the common good. If it's an infrastructure project, much of the money will be spent on wages. The money then returns to the Treasury via taxation - direct taxation, such as income tax or indirect, such as VAT. The Treasury can then choose to let that money circulate or, if the economy is becoming overheated and there's a risk of high inflation, the money can be withdrawn and/or taxation could be increased.

The big problem comes when money ends up in the hands of people who don't use it for the common good and don't allow it to return to the Treasury, by squirrelling it offshore. It remains to be seen what happens to the money which has been handed out over the last few months in contracts to cronies. It certainly won't circulate round the economy as money paid to "ordinary" people would.

PS. The UK doesn't need to buy anything from another country, as it did during WW2 from the US, so the post war debt is different.