Gunpowder, Treason, Plot?
Remember, Remember the 3rd and 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot! This annual cry in the United Kingdom is taking on a 21st Century twist as politics once again on both sides of the pond are thrusting into the light of public scrutiny. Let us steer through the waters of the Thames, the Potomac and of course the Straits.
Thames
Thursday the 5th the UK lockdown starts again although it isn’t quite the same as the last one as schools will be open as will some shops and other places. The big point of contention are the figures the Government Advisors” are using. In fact the graphic on TV had a note in the corner and following the link tells those interested that the figures are advisory not actual and based on scenarios? Wha….?
- All pubs, bars, restaurants and other hospitality in England will be required to fully close by 10pm from this Thursday, they must operate a table service only, except for takeaways.
- Office workers should work from home, but people in construction, retail and other areas should continue to go to work
- People who work in retail will have to wear face masks, as will people in taxis and all staff and customers in hospitality will have to wear a face mask unless they are seated at a table to eat and drink.
- Businesses will be fined up to £10,000 if they breach Covid Restrictions and in retail, leisure and tourism and other sectors, the Covid-secure guidelines will become legal obligations.
- From Monday only 15 people will be able to attend weddings, but 30 can still attend funerals
- The rule of six now applies to all adult indoor team sports
- Business conferences, exhibitions and large sporting events will not be able to reopen as planned from October 1
Potomac
The U.S. Presidential Election count starts coming in early hours of the 3rd and if you have been following it you will know more than as of Thursday 28 million votes have already been cast in person and 52 million via postals.
- Many media outlets cite Biden as being well ahead. There are those to the contrary but as with 2016 the media have no more an idea than we do
- The thinking is that Trump is trailing by about 8points and if Biden wins all the “toss up” states he could win as many as 375
- There is no doubt Trump’s supporters turn out, Biden’s turn out by the 1/2 dozen and Kamala Harris had 250 cars at a drive in rally in Florida, Trump in Pennsylvania had reportedly 57K
- Andrew Neil is on the BBC from 11pm thru to 6am if you want to catch it live.
Straits
We along with several countries are still on “Zero” deaths for Covid which is remarkable or not depending on how you view the virus and its spread. We are currently undergoing our own second spike, we are also less tolerant than others in terms of civil liberties but we still, if we see a reason to obey, are sensible. The figures are there for all to read if you want to get a grip of them. Our Government everyday tweets the latest statistics and this keeps confidence up on how they are dealing with it. So in parallel to the UK Government ours has as many if not more challenges and on balance they are clearly doing better than expected under the double coshing of Covid and Brexit. There is still much to do though. Finally back to the Gunpowder Plot: We don’t celebrate the capture of Guy and his mob maybe because we have a large catholic population and it was them Catholics trying to get rid of the King. Odd because growing up in England as a catholic getting a “penny for the guy” was my most lucrative time of year.