Self Service
IN THE US, it was a week when a “Wall of Moms” in Portland got between the police and the protestors, also when citizens were being snatched off the streets by federal agents in unmarked vehicles.
In the UK, it was a week when the transport secretary Grant Shapps took the opportunity to use the ‘air bridge’ he’d created to holiday in Spain and foreign secretary Dominic Rabb took the opportunity to shut the bridge, quarantining him and others when they get back.
It was also a week when Matt the Hapless’ previous announcement about wearing face masks in shops became mandatory. Except that the Government’s small print released the day before the mandatory-ness kicked in showed that ‘the guidance’ only applied to shoppers, not to staff. This was despite the evidence as well as Mr Hancock-up’s own admission that retail workers are 75% more likely to die from Covid-19 than the rest of us.
And in Wokingham’s Omnishambles last Thursday night, the ref had to call on the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) to adjudicate, then they didn’t add on extra time while the match had been suspended. Players for Wigan Athletic (away), Leyton Orient and Accrington Stanley thought it were a total load o’ bobbins.
To mask or not to mask ?
That is the question. After months of dithering and dissembling, the UK Government has made a decision that makes sense.
Despite Britain’s colossal unpreparedness for an airborne pandemic, whether Influenza or Coronavirus, at last Dominic has got Matt the Hapless to pay attention to a way in which the worst of the ‘second wave’ can be averted.
Perhaps somebody had learned that Japan had avoided the crippling effect of the first wave, without having a lockdown and without its of Covid-19 deaths exceeding 1,000 in total, whereas the UK’s is nearly fifty times higher with April’s death toll alone exceeding 1,000 per day for 22 days.
Contrasts in Counter-measures
The UK and Japan are both island nations with elected parliaments, Japan’s population is 127 million, while the UK’s is 67 million. Japan had its first case on Jan 16, the UK’s was Jan 31.
And then things start diverging.
In Japan the Prime Minister declared Covid-19 as a ‘Designated Infectious Disease’ on Jan 27, announced a national task force on Jan 30 then some travel restrictions on Feb 3 – the same day face masks sold out.
A ‘Cluster Response Team’ was formed on Feb 25 and schools were closed on March 2. Travel quarantines for China and Korea were brought in on March 5.
The Cluster Response Team had discovered by March 9 that infection only seemed to spread in certain high-risk environments:
- Closed spaces;
- Crowded places;
- Close-contact settings (especially face to face conversations).
Counter-measure messaging from that day onwards was “avoid the three C’s” – straightforward and practical and it worked well.
Even small towns like Minamisoma, with one third Wokingham Borough’s population, provided 3C’s materials in English as well as Japanese.
Another countermeasure was to request closure of high-risk environments such as gyms, clubs, conferences and social gatherings, which duly happened. The travel embargo was extended to 73 countries on April 3 and their PM declared a state of emergency on April 7.
By contrast, in the UK a third case was reported on Feb 6, four more on Feb 23, at least 25 at a conference on Feb 27. The government announced its Coronavirus Action Plan on March 3. Royal Berks Hospital reported the UK’s first Covid-19 death on March 5.
Our PM told the nation that there was a world wide pandemic on March 12 and toilet rolls promptly sold out the same day. He announced the lockdown on March 23 and the daily Coronavirus briefings began.
Countermeasure messaging from that day onwards was “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” — a mix of the practical, the political and the panegyric and it didn’t work well.
Essential Supplies
And that was just the start.
In Japan supplies of face masks ran out, in the UK it was toilet rolls.
However, everyone in Japan was using face masks in public: on trains; in shops; in offices; and on the street, in much the same way that anyone had been using face masks if they were infected with a cold or the ‘flu before the pandemic – such is a Japanese individual’s desire not to spread infectious diseases via coughs and sneezes.
By May 1 in Japan, according to Mainichi Shimbun (literally every-day, new-hear) face masks which had been selling at around £2 to £2.50 for a box of 50 were available again but at seven times the price.
By May 1 in the UK, toilet roll supplies had been restored at pre-Covid prices but not only could you not get a face mask for love nor money, nor could the NHS either. And as for care homes …
Comparing Japan and the UK as regards public health, our collective focus is as different as ‘input’ versus ‘output’’ as much as protecting others versus protecting ourselves.
Another fine Omnishambles
Back to our Borough and there was another ‘Full Council’ meeting which was webcast live and is now available to watch as a video.
It started out trying to match ‘The Deer Hunter’ for length, but went past that to just about equal ‘The Godfather Part II’. Mind you, the story-lines aren’t quite as compelling, the actors aren’t as glamorous and the dialogue’s ‘slightly’ harder to follow.
So unless you’re a politics student who’s researching the dearth of democracy in the times of Covid; or a budding author looking to top the antics of Francis Urquhart in House of Cards (or Jim Hacker in Yes Minister); or even if you’re an insomniac with incurable anomie; this one’s not for you.
On with the show
Despite sounding nervous, the Mayor did a good job in getting things going but that started coming unglued just 4 minutes and 38 seconds in when the Leader’s electronic hand went up.
Although I’ve not been able to find the exact provision in WBC’s constitution for what happened next, Councillor Halsall wanted to make a brief statement.
So, taking more time than’s allowed for answers to questions, the Leader went about the difficult and onerous tasks of virtue signalling about his own party; casting aspersions on other parties; extending the meeting unconstitutionally; seeming to exercise a block vote without prior agreement; ripping up the published agenda; ‘suggesting’ the constitution working group should get on with revamping the full council meeting; removing accountability statements by Executive Members and WBC owned Companies; all of which he accomplished with consummate ease.
It was straight out of Crocodile Dundee — where Nugget didn’t need a gun as he’d got a Donk.
Who needs a mayor when you’ve got a Halsall? Arise King John, your work is done, more Get Carter than Magna Carta.
Ask, and you will receive
Unless you’re an ex-Conservative who’s been a thorn in the administration’s thick, thick hide since he was ex-communicated.
Getting a flat denial to his member’s question, the Mayor didn’t bother giving this councillor a chance to ask the real question (aka the supplementary), he just moved on to the next topic instead.
When it came time for ward questions, the ex-Conservative asked a question on behalf of his ward’s residents but it too was ignored and the Mayor just moved on to the next person.
As a current Conservative, the Mayor probably didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the Donk. It wasn’t so much discrimination as civic indifference at its finest.
A code? Make that unwritten rules
But the ignoring of constitutional niceties kept on coming and most of the audience lost count of the number of times the Mayor had to seek clarification.
Every time it happened, the public saw a WBC slide, a blue screen with a caption saying that “The Council meeting will resume shortly” – except it was IN CAPITALS, looking RATHER SHOUTY.
One blue screen was fairly early on when the Labour leader and one of his colleagues wished to speak about the Climate Emergency Action Plan – item 38 on the agenda sandwiched between petitions and other official business.
The Mayor told the Labour leader that the topic had already had its allotted 30 minutes of council time.
To which the Labour leader countered that the constitution had no time limits for this part of the meeting, calling on the Mayor to declare where the constitution set a limit.
So ‘Malcolm the Silencer’ swung into action and everyone disappeared behind the blue screen. When they came back, we learned that the 30 minute time limit was “custom and practice … according to Democratic Services”.
Which to observers looked and sounded pretty much like “we’re making this up as we go along”.
Time passed …
But it all took time, which was allegedly in short supply and at the end of this particular sequence the Labour leader wasn’t giving up. He wouldn’t switch his video off and it appeared that the Mayor couldn’t either.
So as if by command, a series of Conservative members switched their videos on and the image of the Labour leader became smaller and smaller, much like a prize woollen sweater in a boil wash.
It looked like visual bullying, using weight of numbers to squash your opponent.
Going through the motions
The clock was still ticking down as the meeting ground through the tattered remnants of their once proud agenda.
Voting wasn’t so much slow as glacial. From the public’s point of view, WBC’s shockingly maladroit technology taking between a quarter and half a minute just to get the electronic hands down after the ‘Ayes’ had voted so that the ‘Noes’ and ‘Abstains’ could follow.
Even so, there was voting going on and while it may have seemed as farcical as a narcissist going nowhere on a zip wire, it was better than what happened at the Annual Council meeting back in May.
The council debated and approved a resolution to invite Government ministers and mandarins to come to Wokingham Borough to discuss housing over-development.
It approved the council setting an example to all by eliminating single-use plastics and then proselytising their elimination to everyone.
The councillors also approved the combatting of air pollution by means of particulate measurement and no-vehicle-idling zones.
Time’s Up
But with less than fifteen minutes remaining on the clock until the extended 11pm finish time, according to a constitution which was now being punctiliously, if not superciliously, applied — there wasn’t time to debate a Labour motion on adopting a revised council tax protocol.
If only their leader hadn’t held his ground so constitutionally for so long, there’d have been time.
If only there’d been better technology for voting, or more effective use of the shonky technology WBC possesses, there’d have been time.
If only the stoppage times (when the blue screen announcing the council meeting would “resume shortly”) had been added on as has been the ‘custom and practice’ on sports pitches around the world, there’d have been time.
And if they were all done together, not only would there have been time to hold a full debate on the council tax protocol, we might have gotten a start on another one as well.
Still, it had been quite heartwarming to observe the earlier debate on the flag-waving, room naming and bottom scratching protocol that preceded all this ‘other business’.
The last word
You could make this all up but you don’t need to. You just need the constitution of an ox, sorry borough, and you too can settle down to enjoy the omnishambles that WBC’s full council meetings have become.
But if it all indicates that Malcolm the Silent has become Malcolm the Silencer, the question is who’s pulling the trigger?
And whether that particular gun is aimed only at our Council’s constitution, or whether it’s aimed at our local democracy as well?
