Chris Whiteside's Blog

Another day working from home. A few more virtual meetings being set up: signs that people are adapting to making better use of new technology. A challenge for those of us, like myself, in the telecommunications industry to make sure our infrastructure can cope with it. I've already referred to the "Clap for Carers" and to Captain Tom's birthday. Also good news that we clearly now seem to be past the peak of the first wave of the pandemic. To steal a line from the late Ian Fleming, But, but, but and again, but ... The challenge is going to be to balance the understandable wish to get the economy going again with the need to make sure we continue to protect lives. I'm told that every major pandemic in history had more than one wave. Most often three. We cannot afford to assume that this one won't do the same. We must make sure when measures are taken to partially relax the lockdown that we continue to modify our behaviour to minimise t...

I am no fan of Arron Banks. I utterly disagree with many of the things he said and did during the Referendum campaign. That does not stop me from feeling unease at the way he has been treated by the media and I think there are a fair number of people who owe him an apology. When the Electoral Commission referred Mr Banks to the National Crime Agency in 2018 on the basis that they said they had "reasonable grounds to suspect" that he might have broken electoral laws concerning on the real source of money he donated to campaigns to leave the EU, there was wall to wall coverage in the press. People should have been able to reasonably assume that the Commission would only do and say something like that if they actually had some evidence to back it up. And a lot of people, most of whom should have known better spoke and wrote as if the case was not just made but proved. I've lost count of the number of times I have seen the view expressed, including in posts on ...

Again around the country there has been fantastic support for the 8pm "clap for carers." Meanwhile Captain Tom's Just Giving page shows that he has now raised an amazing £32.5 million for NHS charities on the final day. It closes at midnight tonight, so if you want to make a donation you have two and a half hours from the time this post goes up, and can do so here .

Around Britain, people have been wishing a happy hundredth birthday today to Captain Tom Moore, who epitomises the way people in Britain came together to help one another through the COVID-19 pandemic It began when this 99-year old WW2 war veteran decided to raise a thousands pounds by walking a hundred times round his garden to raise money for local NHS charities as a thank you for the NHS. Because thi toughed the hearts of millions of people, as of this morning he had raised nearly thirty million pounds, and inspired a number one hit version of " You'll never walk alone ." He has received more than a hundred and twenty-five thousand birthday cards for his hundredth birthday. including one from M.M. the Queen, who has also promoted him to Honorary Colonel. Here is one of the many tributes to him - and to NHS workers and carers - you can find on YouTube.

"Together we will beat this enemy" (Colonel - as he now is - Tom Moore quoted on the front page of one of today's newspapers)

Another miserable day, this time with miserable weather. With most of the country either working from home, studying at home, or stuck at home on furlough, the country's broadband network has been tested to its limits - my family's connection certainly has. However, despite all the issues Copeland Council managed to collect our recycling: well done to all the people concerned. Lets of people have  been keeping things going in the most trying circumstances: well done to all of them. The "gotcha" journalists who have fed us a diet of unceasing negativity have completely failed to read the room. It's not that people don't want difficult questions asked - it is that they want them balanced with the positive stories which warm the heart and help cheer us up.  And there is no shortage of those stories if you bother to look - from Captain Tom to the baby born to the PM and his fiance Carrie Symons. Some parts of the media have got this: my local pape...

From today, Coronavirus testing has been extended further  to protect the most vulnerable and keep people safe. Every day Britain is ramping up capacity to meet the target of 100,000 tests per day - and the ultimate aim is that anyone who needs a test will be able to have one.   Anyone displaying symptoms who is over 65, as well as people who have to leave their home for work can book a test online now – and so can their household. Testing has also been extended to all NHS and social care staff, care home residents and workers regardless of if they display symptoms of the virus or not.   This new expansion of testing, made possible due to rapidly increasing testing capacity, will help protect the most vulnerable and our healthcare staff and keep people safe.

Congratulations to the Prime Minister and his fiancé, Boris Johnson and Carrie Symons, on the birth of their first child, a healthy boy, who was born today. I gather mother and baby are doing well.

Another stressful work day. though until faily late this evening Whitehaven has been try and sunny today, unlike much of the rest of the country according to what colleagues have said on various work calls. Thinking hard about how to push forward to encourage Cumbria County Council to do more on holding meetings virtually: at least things have started. But we are well behind some of the other councils in Cumbria. Interesting that one of the meetings we held by Skype - and I'm not going to say which one, as maintaining goodwill to keep pushing things forward is more important than potentially embarrassing the guilty by allowing poor attenders to be identified - had a better attendance than I can recall any physical meeting of the body concerned getting. Most councillors of all parties work extremely hard but there are a few in all parties who ought to be able to get to a higher proportion of the meetings they are elected to attend, and I hope this will be discussed with them ...

The Chancellor has announced a new Bounce Back Loans Scheme to ensure that businesses get the financial support they need quickly, to help them survive this crisis. The Government’s emergency measures, including business grants, tax deferrals, and the job retention scheme, are already helping hundreds of thousands of small businesses weather the impact of coronavirus – but many need cash injections to keep operating.   Our new Bounce Back Loan Scheme enables small businesses to borrow up to £50,000 and access the cash within days. They are easy to apply for and the Government provides a 100 per cent guarantee for the loan to lenders.   This will offer additional protection to small firms, helping them get the finance they need so they can keep operating, protect jobs and incomes, and get through this crisis.

There is no amount of money which can replace the loss of a son or daughter, a husband or wife, brother or sister, father or mother. But money can help with the suffering which would otherwise be caused by the loss of a breadwinner or carer. That is why the Health Secretary has launched a new scheme to support the families of frontline health and care workers who die from coronavirus. Health and care workers are on the frontline in the battle against coronavirus, putting the lives of patients ahead of their own. While nothing can make up for the tragic loss of a loved one, we will do everything we can to support families of those health and care workers who lose their lives to this disease. A new Life Assurance Scheme will provide £60,000 to the families of NHS frontline staff and social care workers who die from coronavirus. We owe a huge debt to those who die in service to our nation and are doing everything we can to protect them.

This post is timed to appear at 11am, the start of the minute's silence for NHS and care home workers who have died from COVID-19.

The UK is to hold a minute's silence at 11am today (Tuesday 28th April 2020) in memory of those frontline NHS and care home workers who have died as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. It is estimated that 90 NHS and care home workers have so far died of COVID-19. They put themselves at risk to protect and care for others and made the ultimate sacrifice for doing so. That sacrifice must not and will not be forgotten.

Mrs T was talking about political battles and the battle of ideas. But I suspect the same thing may apply to the battle against COVID-19

Today was a stressful day and very busy day which is why neither my "quote of the day" nor anything else was posted until after 9pm. I spent a very large proportion of the day on conference calls. Two of those calls would normally have been physical meetings, one of them in Kendal. I strongly agreed with the colleague who said that he hoped we would sometimes keep on with having conference calls after the COVID-19 pandemic for at least some of these meetings rather than drive from all over Cumbria to Kendal, at considerable expense in both time and (public) money. Today was also the sort of day when lots of the computer and IT system one depends on both for work and to do council business were playing up. I thought that after nearly three years and three previous computers I finally had a County Council computer that worked, but it let me down today. In the evening I discovered a rich vein of new parody songs on YouTube which adapt various well known songs with wor...

Dan Hodges to Alastair Campbell: (Yes, the Alastair Campbell who was Tony Blair's chief spin doctor at the time of the invasion of Iraq) "With respect Alastair, I’m not sure I’d be delivering lectures on perceived mistakes from British Prime Ministers that have lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths if I were you..."

Today, the Finance Bill had its Second Reading in Parliament – with measures to help deliver on Conservative promises to the British people in these challenging times. We know that many people are worried about the impact of coronavirus on their lives, and we have set out an unprecedented package of measures to support jobs and businesses.   This Finance Bill is the first of this government– with measures to address the ‘taper problem’ in doctors’ pensions, reform Entrepreneurs’ Relief so that it genuinely works in the interests of small business owners, and increase R&D tax credits to significantly increase private R&D investment.   These measures are in addition to the Coronavirus Act, helping to protect life and the nation’s public health. This month, the National Living Wage also received its largest cash boost to £8.72, and we have a delivered a £100 tax cut for a typical employee by increasing the National Insurance threshold to £9,500 – putting more mo...

The Government has unveiled a network of mobile testing units, to ensure that all essential workers that need a Coronavirus test can get one. With testing capacity rapidly increasing towards the goal of 100,000 a day, the Government has expanded testing eligibility so that all essential workers and their households can now be tested if they are displaying symptoms.   To ensure that everyone can access these tests, the Government is deploying mobile testing units, operated by the Armed Forces, which will be travelling around the country to help deliver testing where it is needed. There will be nearly 100 of these units deployed in the coming weeks.   These units will allow for hundreds of essential workers and their households to be tested each day, with results within 48 hours, so they can get back where they are needed – on the front line.

There was a reason for my choice of the two quotes for today from Noam Chomsky - a men about which I agree with hardly anything else - who said that if we don't believe for free speech for views we despise, we don't believe in it at all. I was inspired to make that choice of quote because I was deeply disappointed to read that a professor at my old University has said something that I find quite shameful. You may be surprised to learn that what he has said to offend me was an attack on the new Leader of the Labour party. You may be less surprised if I explain that the professor concerned appears to think the problem with Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party is that it was too tough on people accused of Anti-Semitism . He also thinks that the new leader has basically been bought by "the Zionist movement." Professor David Miller thinks that Sir Keir will sweep any investigation into the leak of the Labour Anti-Semitism report under the carpet because his leadershi...

There is a very thought-provoking piece by TSE (the poster formerly known as The Screaming Eagles) on the Political Betting site about how you organise elections safely in a pandemic. It can be read here . We've postponed the elections which were due this year for one year, until May 2021, but we cannot go on doing that indefinitely. TSE asks if we may end up having to hold elections in which most campaigning and all voting is done electronically. There is a precedent for this and I was personally involved. Between 2002 and 2004 the then government carried out a number of trials with electronic and postal voting in local and European elections. (locals in the first two years and an all-postal in North West Region in the 2004 Euro-elections) St Albans City and District Council, of whose cabinet I was at the time a member, was one of the councils who took part in the trial. We had an initial run with electronic voting in two wards in the May 2002 council elections and in...

Another beautiful day in West Cumbria Another Sunday when we could not go to church, but did pray together at home. There are signs from around the world that countries are passing the first peak of the disease but face difficult decisions on when and how fast to ease restrictions. Here is a graph from The Economist showing the seven day average of daily cases of COVID-19 per million inhabitants in sixteen countries around the world. Note that the vertical axis scales are different on each of the four rows - a line the same height on the top row would indicate twice as many people infected per million people in the population as on the second row and almost an order of magnitude higher than on the bottom row. I am posting this graph to show global trends, not because I think it has anything useful to say about how well or badly any country is doing: the demographic age structure, population density, methods of collecting, recording and publishing statistics, and probably ot...

Four years ago it was quite clear which part of the UK political spectrum was advocating listening to "experts" and which was prone to denigrating them. When quoted in full the infamous comment by Brexiteer Michael Gove about the country having had enough of experts is rather more nuanced and less extreme than it appears in the version more often repeated. But if there had been any doubt of it, his comment comparing a group of Nobel Prize-winning economists, including one of my own teachers, to Nazi collaborators left everyone quite clear on what he thought at the time of economists who don't share his views. (He did apologise for and retract that remark but the damage was done.) At the start of the Coronavirus crisis, concern was expressed by many of those who were not fans of Boris Johnson, especially those on the left and those who had been on the Remain side of the argument, that he and members of his government who had not paid as much attention as they thought h...

My quote of the day this morning, one of my favourite sayings from American economist Thomas Sowell, was chosen for a reason. He once said that "There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs." Much of economics is about how you use finite and often scarce resources, so it is not surprising that an economist should say it or another would like it. COVID-19 has presented some of the cruellest trade-offs of all. Ban all entrance from those who do not work or live their into care homes and you stop family visits, which will be a very cruel thing to do to both residents and their families, especially where the former do not have long to live, and will damage their mental health and wellbeing, But every person through the doors of a care home increases the chance that they will bring COVID-19 with them with dire consequences. The social distancing measures necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus have had dire consequences for the economy. So would the even gre...

Another version of "Sogno di Volare" (The Dream of Flight) by Christopher Tin, with 50+ singers from the Oregon State Chamber Choir. The version of this piece which I posted on Monday was goodm but this one is so magnificent I thought it was worth coming back and posting this one too. My wife said that when she watched and listened to this it was as if the singers represented the world coming together to help one another against Coronavirus.

Had a conversation with a colleague today whom I met while shopping for basic supplies (carefully keeping two metres apart while we talked.) Both of us would normally have occasion to drive round the county a lot, the region a fair amount, and visit London occasionally. He thought he would have normally driven three thousand miles in the last month, but all the meetings he has been to would have been cancelled. I'm in a similar situation. Between work, council meetings and activities, Conservative party functions, church and my social life I would normally have attended more than twenty events over the six weeks since the last meeting I actually did attend - St Bees Parish Council on 16th March. However, most have been cancelled and the rest replaced by Skype meetings. The number of miles I'd have driven would probably also have been in four figures, although the first digit would likely have been one rather than three. As it is I filled the car a week or two into the l...

I'd love to be able to guarantee that this will be my last post ever about the merits of the Brexit vote. Given that the trade deal to replace the present transitional arrangements which runs out of the end of the year has yet to be agreed, and the present COVID-19 pandemic may or may not make an extension necessary, such a promise would be a hostage to fortune. The Brexit argument, and the tribes into which it divided people, continues to cast a long shadow over UK politics including the discussion of Coronavirus issues. It is obvious, for example that for some of the more hard-line people on both sides of the former Brexit argument, the first test they apply when assessing what someone says or writes about COVID-19 is whether they were on the "right" side of the Brexit debate and some of them don't even try to hide it. But for me, and I strongly suspect for the great majority of the electorate, certainly those who were not fierce partisans of either side, t...

At the time Beethoven wrote the Fifth symphony he was not well off. There is a story that his cleaning lady gave notice because she had not been paid regularly. " But you cannot leave me, " the maestro is supposed to have said. " You are my inspiration! " " I am YOUR inspiraction?" she replied, and began to laugh. " Ha ha ha, HA ! Ha ha ha, HA !" Okay, the symphony is better than the joke ...

A beautiful sunny day here in Whitehaven. Went out for some essential shopping and the streets were almost deserted. Which actually shows that people are doing the right thing but felt very odd. Made sure I had cash when visiting one shop establishment which if memory serves did not take cards not all that long ago. Made sure I had cash with me. If I had been asked to pay cash it would have been the first time I bought anything with notes and coin for 32 days. That was a somewhat stunning thought. Although I use my credit or debit card for the majority of purchases now, and other members of my family are used to using their phones to pay for things (and do so rather more now than in the pre-COVID-19 world) this will almost certainly have been the first time I have never paid for a single thing with notes and coin over a period of a full month since I was about eleven years old. I have always thought it likely that I would live to see a cashless society, but I did not expect it ...

The government has announced that businesses will receive almost £10 billion in business rates relief this year, giving them a financial boost and the resources they need to weather this national emergency. The government recognises all the economic impact the current lockdown measures are having, which is why theye have put in place an unprecedented package of support for businesses.   Businesses in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors play a vital role in our communities, and we stand right behind them. In addition to the £6 billion in business grants already awarded, companies will benefit from almost £10 billion in rates relief this year – helping them with their cashflow during this difficult period.   The government has made clear that it would do whatever it took to support local business and protect jobs and that is exactly what this assistance will do. The governmetn stands behind bujsiness as we all work to protect the NHS and save lives.

Another huge expression of support at 8pm as people came to their front doors while those who were doing urgent shopping paused for a moment in supermarkets to applaud NHS and other workers who are on the front line, caring for us all. St George's day when we celebrate the patron saint of England. Must admit I had some sympathy for the idea put forward a few years ago that Saint Alban, the first known Christian martyr in Britain, might have been a more appropriate patron saint for this country than someone who never came within a thousand miles of it, but the tradition is too strong and is obviously not going to change. A very Happy St George's day to everyone reading this. A fun time choosing a music slot for today - as most of the patriotic songs which might otherwise have been appropriate are Britain rather than English. As someone who self-identifies as Britain I am painfully aware that the only thing which upsets Scots, Welsh and Irish people nearly as much as being ca...

A new network of diagnostic laboratories – the biggest in Britain – has been completed in five weeks, enhancing the UK's national testing capability which will be so vital in our battle against coronavirus.  Every day across the country we are increasing our coronavirus testing capacity as we strive to meet our ambition of achieving 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month.   Three new mega-labs in Glasgow, Milton Keynes and Cheshire - which can be scaled up to test tens of thousands of samples - have now been added to that effort, having been announced just five weeks ago. This has been an extraordinary national effort, and we pay tribute to the expert staff and volunteers who have brought about this historic achievement.    Working closely with industry partners and our world leading universities, we can meet our testing ambition together, meaning we can test more key frontline workers and ensure those that test negative for the virus can return safel...

“This disease is not going to be eradicated, it is not going to disappear.  “We have to accept that we are working with a disease that we are going to be with globally for the foreseeable future.”  “If people are hoping it’s going to suddenly move from where we are now in lockdown suddenly into everything’s gone, that is a wholly unrealistic expectation.  “We are going to have to do a lot of things for really quite a long period of time, the question is what is the best package.” (UK Government chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty , 22nd April 2020)

Another busy day at home. Pleased to see that parliament managed to hold Prime Ministers Questions largely remotely - this should facilitate the extension of electronic democracy which should enable us to make it easier to get people involved after the Coronavirus. Captain Tom has now raised more than £28 million for NHS charities thanks to the generosity of more than 1.3 million supporters. The UK's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty says it is "wholly unrealistic" to expect life to return to normal in 2020 since this would require a vaccine or effective treatment to be available and the chances of that happening in this calendar year are "incredibly small." Meanwhile the Labour party's youth wing in London and former Lib/Dem leader Vince Cable made themselves look very silly by celebrating the anniversary of the birth of revolutionary, dictator and mass-murderer Lenin or finding positive things to say about him. Parodying Vince Cable...

All international comparisons about death rates during this Coronavirus pandemic should be treated with caution, including the one I am about to refer to, and especially if someone appears to be trying to rush to a premature judgement that a government they never liked is performing really badly or one they like is doing well. I do think this comparison which I have taken from a New York times article here says something we can learn from. A very similar calculation has been done by The Economist magazine. In various different countries around the world, total death rates from all causes death rates roughly tracked the number of deaths you would normally expect in that country at that time of year for the first eight to ten weeks or so. Then in March the death rates in all these countries took a steep jump upward to well above the normal level of deaths. Here are the graphs for England and wales plus seven other parts of the world: Many European countries have seen a rise ...

The Government has announced £45 million for two world-leading UK projects working to find a vaccine for coronavirus, reaffirming our commitment to do everything in our power to help the scientists working to defeat this virus. UK scientists are working as fast as they can to find a vaccine, saving and protecting people’s lives – and we will do everything in our power to help them.   That is why we are backing our UK scientists with everything they need to find a vaccine, including £45 million for two projects at Oxford University and Imperial College, with the first human trials set to begin tomorrow. This is in addition to the £250 million we are putting into the international effort to find a vaccine – the largest international donation.   While this is a complex process which could take many months and has no guarantees, we are clear that we will back our scientists with what they need, to give us the best chance of finding a vaccine. The Government is cont...

Great news that trials are to begin in Oxford into a potential coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, according to a statement today ealth Secretary Matt Hancock. , He said that the government will "throw everything" at efforts to stop the virus.  "In normal times, reaching this stage would take years," Matt Hancock said, adding how he is "very proud" the University of Oxford was able to make such progress. He praised the “rapid progress” being made into vaccines by scientists at Oxford and Imperial College London.  He added that the UK has "put more money than any other country into the global search for a vaccine" and that of all the efforts around the world, "two of the leading vaccine developments are taking place here at home at Oxford and Imperial".  Mr Hancock says he has told scientists leading the search he would “back them to the hilt and give them every resource they need” in order to succeed. I am sure we w...

Obviously the CIVD-19 pandemic has to be treated first as a serious threat to many human lives, but it is also a potentially catastrophic threat to many people's jobs and livelihoods. That's why the government has taken action to help businesses survive and make sure people still have a job to go back to after the lockdown. The Government has distributed more than £12 billion to local authorities in England, for the small business grants scheme, helping businesses to weather the coronavirus outbreak. This is a hugely challenging time for businesses, especially for the smaller firms that are at the heart of local communities across the country.   As part of the Government’s coronavirus business support package, £12.3 billion has been provided to local authorities in England. Thanks to this support, more than £6 billion has already been paid out to almost half a million business properties, providing vital grants to small businesses.   We are determined to do eve...

Four weeks into the lockdown Public patience and co-operation holding up remarkably well. 140,000 UK companies applied for the Coronavirus job protection scheme on the first day, applications which will protect eh jobs of over a million workers. Not a good day for me: I've had a nasty cold (though it's definitely not COVID-19, the symptoms are completely wrong) and have been struggling to cope with the effects on my computer of trying to open a very large file when I already had another one open. Had to reboot it half a dozen times. Then an intermittent fault in my connection reappeared. In the great scheme of things many people have much worse problems at the moment. Keep well Stay home; protect the NHS; save lives.

Latest actions taken by the UK government to deal with COVID-19 include: Today, the unprecedented Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has opened for applications – one of the most generous schemes in the world which will help to protect millions of jobs across the country. The scheme is now up and running and is expected to benefit millions of people across the country. Firms who apply will receive funds within six days. HMRC’s easy-to-use portal has a step by step application process, and up to 5,000 staff will be manning phone lines and webchat services to ensure any questions can be answered.   Announcing a £1.25 billion package of support for innovative firms impacted by coronavirus, delivering important help that will protect some of the most dynamic sectors of our economy . The £1.25 billion support package will ensure businesses in some of the most dynamic sectors are protected. This includes a £500 million loan scheme for high-growth firms, called the Future Fund, ...