I've been very impressed with Rishi throughout this whole situation.
It's not a pleasant time at all to be a politician (to be fair, when is it a pleasant time) but I think he's handling it as best as anyone could.
He may not keep everyone happy - but that is impossible.
Definitely a PM in the making
The country won't go into a full lockdown again. We simply cannot afford it.
As I've said before the well ran venues will survive. Those with long term plans and goals. The poorly ran ones with short term outlooks will struggle as will the big chains who saturate the market (Frankie and Benny's for example).
Or start on HS 29- the high speed trans-pennine link to the NE or HS46 - the high speed link from London to the NE.
Is there really any need for a high-speed link to London? I believe they should concentrate on moving work out of London. Devolving to the provinces. (I know it's wishful thinking, but I can never forget how Thatcher's policies forced me to London in 1980).
Trains are pointless now aren't they if the office environment is moving to people's homes instead?
Same argument for HS2. But the better links to London, the more likely Northern relocations will take place.
I don’t think we would lockdown again either maybe some localised areas if necessary.
Personally I think the world has changed for the future. Train travel into major cities Will be way down and I expect the HS2 link to be dropped indefinitely. We cant afford to spend that kind of money on infrastructure whilst there are other priorities now and indeed for what value they will bring.
Well that's the happy path you describe, but looking at the US and what happened when they started to reopen states, the happy path looks less likely. We haven't got our numbers down to the same levels as Germany, France etc. and we haven't got a digitalised Track n Trace system, so we are susceptible to regression in the fight against covid.
It's not a happy path it's a realistic path thought out with caution.
Agreed, there is unlikely to be a country wide government mandated lockdown.....however, it is very likely that a second wave will see people voluntarily lockdown out of fear. This will devastate certain businesses. If the second wave is looking as bad or worse than the original one, then 80%+ could cut out all unnecessary contact
Those States never closed down, so it's not a fair comparison. In New York, where we were completely closed down and have re-opened very carefully and not yet fully, it seems to be working well.
A 'happy path' is a term that defines where everything goes as planned, where the plan or strategy goes smoothly. That is what you described, a steady slow increase in numbers, allowing us to return close to normal.
New York State currently has fatality numbers that are twice the whole of France. It's a massive improvement, from where they were. As you say, it hasn't 'fully reopened', and that has an economic impact. If it were to reopen, the virus will rage again.
Too slow to close it down and there's a particular dynamic to New York City that makes it very difficult to contain. I haven't been into the City since the beginning of March and here, on Long Island, we can now do most things, all with the appropriate precautions.
