The argument, which the council lead for Oldham has just stated on radio about 30 mins ago, is that a national lockdown will trigger more of a lobby from all parties for the furlough scheme similar to March/April, whereas currently they feel that there is a political motive behind it.
When you consider Nottingham having the highest case rate per 100k of population, which is a third higher than Liverpool and nearly double that of Manchester, and only being in Tier 2, i can see Burnham’s argument.
I can see the logic of thinking a national lockdown will bring about the furlough scheme, but the flipside of that is the national lockdown will do much more unnecessary damage to the economy, and the debt, and as they already have a problem with a distribution of the funds up north, the end result will be that huge extra hit to the national economy will make the long-term economic recovery in Manchester and its neighbours far, far worse. Seems a bit short-sighted.
In general, as far as I see, the tiers correspond very strongly to the case rate. Where there are exceptions, I'd imagine a few do involve additional factors, but most of them would be political. In the way that the contrasting situations in Manchester and Liverpool are political, i.e. stronger opposition bumps things down. So if Burnham is being praised for opposing the national measures, I'd imagine a good few of those other exceptions should be praised for being strong too. Undoubtedly there will be cases where it's just Tory cronyism and in all likelihood legitimate corruption, but pointing to that minority while ignoring the broader pattern that most cities are in those tiers for a legitimate reason seems a bit opportunistic.
If there was no wider cost to that then I wouldn't really care but deliberately amping up the north-south divide in a health and economic crisis could have potentially huge ramifications that just make things worse for everyone involved. And I have no selfish stake in that as someone from NI who accepts the necessity of the economic costs of this "circuit breaker", because the failings of our own cities and towns have recreated a huge risk for our hospitals. Seems like people in Manchester are more keen to blame London and claim conspiracies without wanting to acknowledge the issues in their own area.
@Brwned, I've always thought that the inconsistent/lax enforcement will be the undoing of any measures brought in within England. When we were back in England I saw loads of people in shops without masks, even though there were signs saying you had to have a face-covering - there were also plenty of cashiers not wearing a mask or face shield. I saw big groups of young men wandering around in the town, even though there was a limit of 6 at that time.
The most unfair thing isn't the disparity between regions, it's the disparity between people who've given up a lot of life's simple pleasures because they're trying to do the right thing, and the significant proportion of people who'll continue to do as they want.
Yeah, I agree to a large extent. Although enforcement is quite a strong term.
I certainly notice far more adherence over here to a lot of the basic preventative measures, but that's not because police are out on the street issuing fines all the time, or making their presence known in a way they wouldn't usually. Rather than them being compelled to do so by threat of punishment, it seems to me it has more to do with people believing it's in their own and their society's best interests. I think the UK has failed at that more than they've failed at doling out punishments. If there was a greater police presence just gently reminding people to put their masks on and that sort of thing, as part of a kind of community engagement exercise, I'm sure that would make a difference. I don't see the fines as a particularly important element of things. But there's just not enough police on the streets because these elections have consequences after all.