Some good points here I  and I’m sure  taxation will change its long overdue in some cases, I like the idea of a shared responsibility from young and old, hints sometime ago that things like T lock and taxation for the self employed will change 

Sunak has dropped a heavy hint that taxes on the self-employed could rise as the country comes out of crisis mode. Speaking of the lower rates of tax that are open to self-employed workers, in light of the support scheme made available to those who work for themselves, he said in March: “It is much harder to justify the inconsistent contributions of people with different employment statuses. If we all want to benefit equally from state support, we must all pay in equally.”

That’s Toxic imo 

With members of the public gathering every Thursday night to applaud the NHS, care workers and other public sector staff at the centre of the pandemic, it would take a bold Tory chancellor to make a case for real-wage cuts and reduced funding levels.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of this country. There's also very, very few multi-millionaires amongst that group.

My biggest 'beef' is with corporations, who exert big influence - often through, let's face it, blackmail - over government policy; and the super-rich who abuse our pathetically lax tax laws to stash their cash offshore (to add insult to injury, in tax-haven British Overseas Territories).

As for the question of paying for the lockdown and CV19-induced deficit, we have the option of 'helicopter money'. There'd be a potential hit on asset values, but IMO that's not a bad thing.

A crude, scurrilous and nonsensical accusation. Seriously, you've been reading too much claptrap on Guide, Spiked and similar.

I also think you simply don't understand why nearly every country on earth has, in one way or another, locked down. It's really surprising given we both also know stopping animal movements stops animal disease in it's tracks.

 Oh, and just remind me, you don't get any public support right? No RPA single payment paid for by tax payers?

👍

I cringe every time I hear CEOs of these big corporations speak about looking after employees etc. The only people they're ever looking after is themselves and their major shareholders.

Well said.

Correct. Regrettably Four has made many such contributions to these Covid threads.

I'm baffled by the stance of Maunder and Four: the evidence from every country all points the same way and yet they conclude that the lockdown is an overreaction.

Mind you, Four spent a decade on the Climate Forum trying to pretend that climate change wasn't a threat either. 

In my opinion, the government really will be playing with fire again if they try to ease the lockdown before we have a testing and tracing system in place which Joe mentioned earlier. That is why I also agree with Joe that schools can only start to return if/when we have such a system in place.

The government have taken more than enough unneccessary gambles already which have led, directly and indirectly, to well over 30,000 deaths in this country, and that is only the official figures reported by the government each day.

Both KFC and Starbucks have begun reopening some outlets. There's massive demand - the drive-through Starbucks near me had a queue on the neighbouring car park just to join the queue through the drive-through. 

KFC's app and website are farcical and neither were letting you order online as KFC have been telling people to do. Neither Deliveroo nor Just Eat would take orders for the St Helens branch, so I ended up ordering through Deliveroo in Warrington to deliver it to the KFC car park. There were about 30 other cars had done the same, and a procession of people/cars were just turning up and hoc, but being told they were only processing online or delivery orders. The wait time was 100-130 mins.

There's a massive demand from people to just get life operating again with some normality. 

We went to Lytham St Annes today to have a big walk with the dog at somewhere different. There were hundreds of people around. Thankfully the tide was well out and we were able to let the dog have a good run without getting within 50 yards of anyone else. But the numbers were an eye-opener. 

I've been seeing it all week. At work we are as busy as pre lockdown after a few weeks of welcome respite from the madness we saw with the panic buying.

I'd say 2/3rds of people are adhering somewhat to social distancing, the rest simply don't care. Some people are acting like nothing is going on at all.

It has been a nightmare keeping the required limit on people entering the place I work in. Signs up, allied to the well known situation yet I'm tearing my hair out having to stipulate the rules to customer after customer. 

I have zero faith in the public using common sense.

How depressing that KFC should be seen as an important part of normality.

There was a discussion on the radio today about how eating habits had changed in the ‘lockdown’ with fewer prepared meals and more organic and locally sourced fresh produce. Apparently it’s partly driven by wanting a healthier diet - and more free time.

KFC is the antithesis of healthy eating.

It's quite utterly pathetic that people are prepared to queue up for up to 2 hours just to get a taste of that shite. 

Nandos is closed so people are desperate.. the only explanation for queues at KFC 

To clarify, I didn't wait 2 hours there. Ordered it at home, got a delivery time, stayed at home for a while then drove there to arrive 15 mins prior to delivery. 

I do like a KFC.

As for Nandos, I've recreated that a few times since they shut (actually got a takeout from there the Saturday before they decided to close fully)

We do only do one takeout a week 

 I believe this to genuinely be the official page of the Telford police. Apparently the partiers had a DJ set up. There obviously aren't 70 people in the photo but apparently the police didn't want to name and shame.

I asked one of them why they came to this event. "I'm sick of self isolation"

— Telford Cops (@TelfordCops) May 16, 2020