This is near latest data on new Covid cases, comparing the UK and Europe, and using data from the FT:
The UK is aberrational: remember the EU is five times the size of the UK in population terms.
Throw in the USA, Australia and India for further comparison and the UK experience is even more peculiar:
Nothing about the UK experience of the delta variant of Cvid can be considered normal.
I accept that it is also true that hospitalisation rates are lower than at the beginning of this year, and so too are death rates (thankfully). But there is no evidence that this does not mean that there is substantial harm from this illness, still. People are seriously ill with it, and significant numbers suffer long Covid effects.
Despite this very obvious fact the UK is choosing to be the outlier in its response to Covid now. We are going to abandon all public health precautions, even though the growth in case rates suggests that there may be 70,000 cases a day by July 19. In effect, the UK is choosing to be the Delta variant incubator for the world. And, given that it is still the case that only 50% of the UK population is vaccinated (and many who are now likely need a booster, which is so far unavailable) the likelihood that we are also becoming a new variant incubator is very high indeed.
The obvious question to ask is why is this? The arrival of Sajid Javid is the obvious explanation. Like Rishi Sunak, he comes from the far right of Tory politics. Like Sunak he thinks the economy comes first. Like Sunak he does not understand economic externalities. Like Sunak he thinks that the cost of Covid can be shifted from the government to the public balance sheet by simply ending all interventions, including those on public health and for those who suffer the economic consequences of being sick. Like Sunak he believes that this will let the government balance its books. Like Sunak he thinks this the government's priority. And like Sunak, the reason for this belief is naive ideology and not evidence.
I may of course be wrong, but this shift in the balance of power does not seem to be by chance to me. I think the toppling of Hancock was planned, albeit he did not help himself. Hancock had seen enough of the NHS to known Sunak and Javid are wrong: he had to go as a result.
And in whose interests are Sunak and Javid working? It's certainly not that of the people of the UK: we are the guinea pigs who must get ill in their experiment.
It's also certainly not in the interests of the UK economy as a whole. Removing all economic support for the economy at the time when another wave of Covid is being deliberately unleashed on it does not make sense: business stress will very obviously increase as a result. This is not a sound economic plan.
So who gains? As far as I can see two interests gain. One is the ideologue: finally, Ayn Rand will have her day. That is what Javid, most especially, wants. We must suffer the consequences of life without state support. That is Javid's plan. Life in the raw is to be unleashed on us. He believes it for our own good that we must suffer.
And pharmaceutical companies gain. They are already guaranteed billions and maybe trillions in profit from Covid as a result of vaccine manufacture. The US and EU have refused to open up vaccines for all, for free: market interests have already come first. And now it seems that the aim is to make sure that new variants can develop. This will perpetuate demand for vaccines as any possibility of controlling and effectively containing Covid is abandoned. This then will create a demand for updated vaccines when an elimination strategy would remove this source of profit for the pharmaceutical companies.
So, we are to suffer the raw harshness of market-based logic so that some in that market, with rights reinforced by the state, can profit unduly. I find it very hard to offer any other explanation for what is about to happen in the UK.
What I hope is that the rest of the world realises this. I hope they call it out. I sincerely hope that they isolate us, as would be the only rational reaction, starting with a block on UK attendance at the Olympics, I would suggest. And then they might have a hope of being protected from our insanity. But it would only be a small hope. We are literally threatening the well-being of the world right now. And that is unforgivable.
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Surely now Scotland has to stop dithering and seize the opportunity to unshackle itself from this madness.
There have been many times over the more than a decade that I’ve been reading your blog that you’ve written something that absolutely and categorically hits the nail on the head, Richard, and this is another such occasion. And I, like many others I assume, did initially think Hancock’s idiotic behaviour to be simply that, though I did think it very odd that there was a camera in his office. But for a week or so now I’ve come to the same conclusion as you – as it seems have quite a few people – that that was no accident and that he was, in fact, fitted up. Indeed, I suspect Johnson’s remark about taking swift action to get rid of him, was not a reference to sacking him (as most people assumed) but was a Freudian slip which gave away the fact that he was in on the plot, and no doubt had Javid in mind all along – them being libertarian bedfellows (not forgetting that bringing him back into government conveniently put one over on Cummings given he was directly responsible for Javid’s resignation as Chancellor).
So, let’s just hope that the rest of the world – starting with our neighbours the EU – do swiftly recognise what’s going on here and the danger it creates for their citizens, and more widely across the globe. Sadly, I suspect it may already be too late for that.
We are in agreement
Agree with all that.
I have been trying to get people to understand that we are at the end of 50 year plan of neocon/libs – I don’t recognise any difference in the Thani do in hard left/right narratives – which they achieved through control of political parties and their top down candidates; often fronting the technocrats who pull the strings. Many of the non-elected ministerial roles nowadays are just dispensing with the sock puppets like Hancock and the PM’s, who flip flop without a blink. With the MSM ken and barbies providing full 24/7 propaganda. The social media giants equally so through algorithms. And postal vote manipulation completely ignored.
The infections graph shows the worst and I expect the reality of EXPONENTIAL is not far behind in illnesses, hospitalisation and deaths.
The Narrative managers are getting a free hand in telling us we must not believe what we see! “Just shut up and go make the pile of bodies higher – it’s your duty”
Yeah yeah. They can shove their George medals.
How about a petition: We the People demand that the entire membership of the Conservative Government demonstrates its confidence in the abolition of Covid-19 safeguards on 19 June 2021 by leading from the front, travelling to and from work on that day, during Rush Hour, by train, underground and/or bus without masks, or the observation of social distancing.
“We are literally threatening the well-being of the world right now”
You really need to loosen that tin foil hat. It’s clearly cutting off the blood to your brain.
I know you’re disappointed that the apocalypse you’ve predicted at every step of the removal of restrictions (and even earlier – you predicted an apocalypse over the longer gap between vaccinations) hasn’t occurred but now you’re just starting to sound hysterical. What happened to that 40,000 death toll by July that you were predicting earlier in the year?
If you want to stay indoors cowering behind the curtains, please do so. No doubt you’d be happy to let delivery drivers take the risks you claim are out there to bring things to your door.
And will you come back on here in a couple of months time and admit that you were wrong and needlessly trying to generate fear? Probably not.
It was 150,000 +
I was right
This, from the Guardian Tim Price. I suggest you read it.
“No scientist is arguing that Covid restrictions should remain in place forever. “The frustrating thing is that we know double-vaccines work: they protect the vast majority of people, even from variants, even from Delta, so there is an endpoint to this,” said Stephen Griffin, professor of virology at the University of Leeds.
“The real worry is that that they’re basically saying it’s not going to be so bad, and we’ve got most people vaccinated so let’s just carry on. If you want to actually stop new outbreaks, and the tremendous damage done by this variant, you need to build your vaccine coverage up, to include, in my view, children aged 12 years and above, because that’s where many of the infections are at the moment, but also because there’s lots of socialising going on — and it is about to increase.
“Yes, we may eventually have to live with outbreaks and with some infections, but we’re nowhere near a herd immunity threshold, and it’s not a magic barrier that you go through — it is literally the more the merrier. You need to build that wall of double-vaccinated people, and if you do that you might not need boosters, because if everyone has that level of immunity then there will be no cases.”
In other words, whatever the government’s motivation (ideological fanaticism or sheer incompetence), this a disastrous course of action. We do not have enough people properly vaccinated, and we are now seeing exponential growth rates in infection due, yet again, to previous acts of gross incompetence by Johnson and co.
And, utterly unsurprisingly, we now here the mantra of ‘personal responsibility’ trotted out as a way of shifting the blame from the government to the citizens when disaster occurs. You right wingers really are something, aren’t you?
I agree – there will be an end, of course
It is definitely not now
“the UK is choosing to be the outlier in its response to Covid now”
I guess you have not been following the news. The UK seems to have a lot of company as an ‘outlier’
France – Nationwide curfew ended on 20 June, 10 days earlier than planned. Face masks are no longer required outdoors.
Restaurants, cafes and bars can serve customers indoors, with 50% capacity and up to six people per table.
Standing concerts will resume on 30 June and nightclubs on 9 July
Italy – On 21 June, Italy’s curfew was scrapped and the whole country, except for the northwest region of Valle d’Aosta, became “white zone” – the country’s lowest-risk category.
Denmark – All indoor businesses, with the exception of nightclubs, are open.
Holland – Restaurants, cafes, museums and historic buildings have reopened with capacity limits. Alcohol can be sold after 22:00, and nightclubs can open, with an entry pass system.
Sweden – Since June, pubs have been able to stay open until 22:30 and more people are now allowed at sports events, outdoor concerts, cinemas and markets. Further easing is planned on 15 July
USA Most states have dropped coronavirus-related restrictions
Alabama: Fully reopened.
– Alaska: Fully reopened.
– Arizona: Fully reopened.
– Arkansas: Fully reopened.
Colorado: Fully reopened.
District of Columbia: Fully reopened.
– Florida: Fully reopened.
– Georgia: Fully reopened.
Idaho: Fully reopened.
– Illinois: Fully reopened.
– Indiana: Fully reopened.
– Iowa: Fully reopened.
Kentucky: Fully reopened.
– Louisiana: Fully reopened.
– Maine: Fully reopened.
– Maryland: Fully reopened.
– Massachusetts: Fully reopened.
– Michigan: Fully reopened.
– Minnesota: Fully reopened.
– Mississippi: Fully reopened.
– Missouri: Fully reopened.
– Montana: Fully reopened.
– Nebraska: Fully reopened.
Nevada: Fully reopened.
– New Hampshire: Fully reopened.
– New Jersey: Fully reopened.
New York: Fully reopened
– North Carolina: Fully reopened.
– North Dakota: Fully reopened.
– Ohio: Fully reopened.
– Oklahoma: Fully reopened.
– Oregon: Fully reopened.
– Pennsylvania: Fully reopened.
South Carolina: Fully reopened.
– South Dakota: Fully reopened.
– Tennessee: Fully reopened.
– Texas: Fully reopened.
– Utah: Fully reopened.
– Vermont: Fully reopened.
– Virginia: Fully reopened.
– Washington: Fully reopened.
– West Virginia: Fully reopened.
– Wisconsin: Fully reopened.
– Wyoming: Fully reopened.
But they have negligible case rates
We have enormous case rates
How stupid do you have to be to not notice the difference?
Don’t you just love these rabid anti-lock-downers?
This is what you get when markets are left to develop societies – a culture of hyper-individualisation – a feeling of self entitlement and unfettered freedom, devoid – apparently – of any consequences whether from pandemics or the climate or whatever.
Maximum self-realisation with no limits!
Yeah…………right.
I know who has been had – and it ain’t me.
On Monday last week the UK had 28,800 new cases france had 509. So you are correct.
You seem to be the one not following the news. The graphs from the FT should be blindingly obvious – the UK has very high rates of infection, increasingly rapidly, way beyond any of the other major countries. Reducing precautions should be the last thing the country is doing.
Unless like Johnson, Javid and co you are following dogma rather than data
I agree with you entirely in your second to last paragraph – we are to become a demand stream for vaccine profit – the Neo-lib Tories are indeed solving our problems with more markets, just like the Neo-lib rule book says we should.
The far right wing media have been pushing this agenda for weeks. it came to a head this morning on GMB. They had invited on a scientist to make the case for not relaxing the rules on the 19th. Then they ambushed her with the accusation that she is a member of the Communist Party. “You believe in state control!” they thundered. As if that undermined her reasons for wanting to keep precautions against the spread of the virus. As if state responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens (who are the state, in a democracy) were something shameful to be rejected at all costs. The libertarian ideology behind “freedom day” was laid bare, but with 53 per cent of people intending to burn their masks on the 19th (according to a poll also on GMB), it has clearly already triumphed.
Who was the scientist?
Susan Michie. I know nothing about her.
Susan Michie is a clinical psychologist and and a health psychologist and the daughter of Donald Michie, the late, great machine intelligence guy.
Professor Susan Michie, a member of SAGE.
Those graphs are both terrifying and truly baffling.
How are we so different to the USA and the EU when our vaccination levels are the same or better and our level of lockdown don’t seem measurably different (in some cases it’s stricter than certain US states)
Is it purely the Delta variant? In which case I don’t see how the others keep it out and we’re just a month in front of them?
Is it the level of testing we are doing? Seems unlikely.
Whatever the reasons, it seems lunacy to just fully reopen as planned.
What I don’t understand is the weird binary that anti-lockdown folk seem to have found themselves in. They seem to believe even a delay to full opening is basically full lockdown. The merest suggestion of tightening rules a tiny bit is tantamount to fascism.
Absolute madness
I can’t quote figures on this but I gather we utilise more cycles in the PCR tests than other countries do, which means that in the UK negligible and inert amounts of covid will give what’s esssentially for pragmatic purposes a false positive. Lots of the people testing as positive then actually aren’t in any meaningful way, however, a whole lot of them will be. The pity is we don’t know any way of distinguishing between the two, so far as I’m aware, other than to count hospitalisations.
I know if no evidence to support this
Lest any of you think Jeremy Hunt would be any better, I have to disillusion you. He is my MP and I write to him every month or two. I have been trying to tease out whether he supports the government unquestioningly, including all the lies, law breaking and corruption (I put it to him more politely). He has asked the odd question in the health committee to suggest that he is not a complete Johnson toady.
However, it has become apparent in recent correspondence that he has sold out just as much as the rest of them. Degenerated to ‘will of the people’ level. Even if he is not the full Randian Javid, he has clearly decided that he had better drink the Kool-Aid to get on in the current Tory party. And we should not forget that he supports a privatised, insurance based health system.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-privatise-nhs-tories-privatising-private-insurance-market-replacement-direct-democracy-a6865306.html
He has always been oro-privatisation
My main question just now on this subject is:
Why are our governments still running under emergency powers?
They’ve had over a year to formulate the emergency response – the pandemic is a ‘known’ element now, and they should have all their responses and needs known too, and so they should have enacted legislation and/or regulation well before now. It’s a public health crisis, and so should be run/coordinated by public health and the NHS. The need for business closures and government support should be standard and enacted based on their tier system that’s determined by a body formed for the response (say, SAGE?) etc. Why does the government still need emergency powers?
They don’t as far as I can see. Legislation should also be put in place so an immediate response can be enacted for future pandemics (predicted at a greater frequency because of globalisation). Has parliament or the government even started this process? Over a year is a ridiculously long time to still be working on an ’emergency’ basis.
The government response might have been dire, but they aren’t planning on doing anything NEW now, so write it into legislation. (And then maybe parliament might get to have an opinion on exactly how dire it’s been).
Yes Richard.
Johnson has always flirted with this – ‘let the bodies pile high’ etc, so its not necessarily just driven by y Javid and Sunak.
But they may have overeached themselves this time.
It could be that enough people see the idiocy of removing all face coverings on transport, and social distancing in crowded venues when infections are rocketing – that they will continue to excercise caution – (polls show a large majority for keeping both face covering and social distancing) .
The result could be the worst of both worlds – more hospitalisation and death – with the economy still stuttering and hospitality still in trouble and more businesses and jobs lost.
Simon Wren-Lewis has always made this case. As long as people are concerned about catching Covid, they will not go back to normal patterns of behaviour and the economy will not fully recover.
Given that a large majority of people would seem to prefer mask wearing to continue, those people are not going to be reassured by the government’s let it rip strategy. Including me. Having a significant chunk of non-mask wearers running around in risky situations will only make the majority even more cautious.
Agreed
Re Jared Pink on UK not an outlier.
I’ve been living in Italy (Rome) this past three weeks. Shop workers, bar and restaurant staff pretty much universally wear face masks. This whilst temperature c.28-30C., and fairly high humidity. Customers too, tho not in restaurants, wear masks. Even in coffee bars , by and large, when they walk-in in/out, paying for what they’ve had. Most, perhaps all shops still have alcohol soap dispensers, supermarkets have disposable gloves. In sum there is still huge caution and care. The rule of wearing masks even outdoors was largely flouted. Yet even now, with the rule gone, a few still wear them. Not on the beaches, tho!
[…] By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist. He has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics. He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK […]
The level of testing has to be part of this, surely?
France, Germany and Italy still have higher daily deaths than the UK, though cases continue to fall, and are at very low levels.
As Delta is in Europe already, it may be that the other side of the channel is worse off longer term.
The level of testing has nothing to do with this.
The disparities in testing have been consistent over the period when the delta variant has been spreading
The results found reflect real data, not different levels of testing
They are noticing:
https://english.alarabiya.net/coronavirus/2021/07/05/Britain-s-COVID-19-cases-up-53-percent-in-past-week
In addition to the two factors mentioned justifying the government approach: promoting individualism and the interests of the pharmaceutical interests I detect an element of social darwinism: the acceptance of the necessity for the culling of the herd.
So tough minded are Tories these days they are not only prepared to sacrifice granny but also workers in performing public facing duties whether as nurses , bus drivers, shop assistants or waiters. But so tough minded are they they would propel the sick to continue working and spreading the virus rather than pay decent sick pay. Its the same tough mindedness which applauds the end of british agriculture, the embrace of chlorinated chicken, hormones in beef and the spraying of industrial quantities of herbicides on everything, which only GMO crops can survive. Its the same survival of the fittest mentality that is killing off small exporters to Europe, creating huge waiting lists for those relying on the NHS, and denying social care to those that cannot afford it.
Dennis Healy called it sado-monetarism; May being the nasty Party .
In reality they are the Millwall Faction: nobody likes them but they don’t care.
The probable explanation is their early childhood experiences , which can be treated with love and understanding but there is no need to put up with its policies. All need to oppose.
Sadopopulism is my favourite term for this
I do not understand why its popular.
It betrays a gang like attitude of us against the others.
Strange that they need a gang to promote individualism.
Apparently its because they need camraderie and affirmation.
I blame the lack of the darts league and the snooker club
I have ever been anti-Tory basically because the greatest good for the greatest number was ever my credo. It’s how I was raised. But the sinister dark forces who own the MSM and the Tories and who hardly anyone ever sees, have clearly decided they need even firmer control of our world. Manifest in this semi-Fascist mob calling themselves our Government clearly is the abandonment of any pretence to care for the well-being of ALL our citizens. Our people are up to their knees in shark-infested waters the like of which has not been contemplated never mind seen, for almost a century. The Tory looters roost and preen in Parliament with their 80 seat majority – and yet I struggle to comprehend where the occasional BLUE voices of sanity that once upon a time were raised in the not too distant past have now disappeared to? Maybe they too are fearful of their pseudo-Fascist yoke-masters.
They have been expelled buy Johnson
Around 20 MPs were thrown out, remember
Well Richard yes that event had sneaked past me in truth. So how do these 20 sit now and what as?
They don’t
They were prevented from standing and replaced by right-wingers