Quote of the day 11th April 2020


Comments

Gary Bullivant said…
I now understand that the government's guidance/advice/instruction/order to Stay Home, Protect the NHS and Saves Lives will not be breached if I travel up to one hour or under 50 miles in any direction from my current choice of home, so long as I have a reasonable excuse for doing whatever it is I say I'm going to be doing when I get there. I thank Robert Jenrick for demonstrating this truth to me in such a practical and easily understandable manner.
1:44 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
The formal government advice doesn't put any limit on how far you can travel if it relates to a genuine medical need or to a work function which cannot be done from home.

I don't think any travel is entirely free from risk, but there are some categories of travel which it would be extremely difficult to manage without and which are therefore permitted. In the real world some of the potential trips which fall within those categories are more essential than others but at the end of the day you have to run a country on rules and if someone's behaviour is within the rules then it is, frankly a bit out of order to jump all over them as though they had done something which wasn't.

Robert Jenrick's actions in taken essential medicines to his elderly parents and returning from his place of work to his main family home were well within the published travel rules.

We do all have to apply a bit of common sense, which the great majority of the population have been in their behaviour and the great majority of the police have in how they have encouraged oeople to stay safe, which has mostly been done by persuasion - a thousand fines in a country of 60 million people over nearly three weeks is a very small number and does not suggest a lot of heavy-handed policing.
1:51 am
Gary Bullivant said…
"Stay at home wherever possible" he said when speaking to the public in an official capacity on 22 March. "If people don't we will have to consider other options but none of us want to go down that route.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1241649087784591360

The government went down that route almost as soon as he had moved his family from his home in London to his second (or is it his third) home near Ludlow and visited his parents near Telford. Ok, so it was not possible for the medical supply needs of his self isolating parents to be met by any more local family members, their friends, neighbours, employees or the pharmacy delivery service in Shropshire. How lucky we are to be here in friendly and caring West Cumbria at any time but especially now.

1:28 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
I very much doubt if you know the detailed personal circumstances of his elderly parents and neither do I.

But we both do know that getting medicine for people is one of the legitimate reasons to leave your home which has been given in government advice.

The only other thing I have to say about your posts on this subject is that I very much agree with your comment,

"How lucky we are to be here in friendly and caring West Cumbria at any time but especially now.".
7:39 pm
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