Is that what it actually says though? I must be misreading it because they can't actually have fecked up that badly.
@Dante has been defending the government's position a bit, what do you make of it?
That's definitely not the the position from which I've been arguing.
I have zero affiliation with this government. I'm a Green voter in most elections, with the occasional tactical vote for Labour or the Lib Dems. I've never voted Tory, and I think Boris is a cnut.
What I've been arguing for in this thread is a multi-faceted approach to this crisis, as best descibed by the multi-disciplinary board leading the strategy.
My argument
tries to take into account lives lost in the short term, as well lives lost in the long term, the potential for civil unrest leading to rioting, quarantine and curfew management, people being able to keep their jobs so they can pay for food and rent and don't become homeless, keeping families above the poverty line, keeping the supply chain unbroken so that shops can be stocked with food, keeping order on the streets so that medical workers can get to hospitals, keeping the utilities running so that we all have water to drink, etc. etc.
The opposing view in this thread is to take a single-track approach which mainly takes into account lives lost in the short term, and hopes the knock on effects in the long-term are also positive.
I don't think the single-track view is ignoble in any way. I think most who argue for it are doing so from a well-meaning place. However, I also think it's misguided in terms of coming up with the best possible solution for keeping the highest number of citizens alive and safe for the next 18 months until the crisis is (hopefully) over.
I'm a pragmatist who's quite happy to change his mind based on fresh information. If the multi-faceted approach and the single-track approach end up in agreement, then great. But it will be down to luck rather than judgement because a multi-faceted approach will always be closer to the ideal.