Vocal Voices

Sky is reporting a government document leaked to the Sun to cover a reasonable worst-case scenario this winter, and it has not been denied.

Spike of Covid-19 - no deal Brexit - flu - floods.

Power, food, medicine and fuel shortages are in there as are things like town halls running out of money, civil disorder and troops on the streets.

It might well be a worst-case scenario but even a mild-case could be very difficult this winter. Covid is not going away, the noises from the Brexit negotiations are not very positive, and we will get flu as we always do.

I am going to get a full gas canister for my camping stove and also go back to 'buy one for now, buy one for the cupboard' type of shopping. It will all be stuff I can eat direct from the tin - all day breakfasts, chunky soups, that kind of thing.

It's going to be bad, I fear

I can certainly back up what they're saying about the councils running out of money. My sister runs a dept in Adult Social Services in Luton - the council there is in dire straits verging on bankruptcy because they've lost a huge amount of the usual revenue from the airport

Well I guess you could take that super negative, worst case, government does nothing whilst the country sinks view.

On the other hand, we could look at it another way.

This revelation has come from India as the Serum Institute in Pune, one of the companies that will manufacture it, has announced that it can probably be launched 73 days after the start of Phase 3 trials: this date would be November 3, 2020.

Manufacturing production in the month to June meanwhile rose 11%, which was better than the 10% analysts had forecast.

In fact, all the key readings came in above market expectations which could be interpreted as being net positive for the British Pound

We can assume that the UK government is not going to do a damned thing about regional funding and will let the economy go to hell, or we can understand that having pushed the national debt up to twice what it was after the financial crisis, they will not stop until the country is actually recovering.

Furlough may be being phased out, but that does not mean that the government has abandoned the economy.

As for a deal with the EU, post Dec 2020? Until the EU stop demanding that they retain full control over what the UK can spend to get out of the covid mess (yes that is what the level playing field means in this situation), that is the very worst thing the UK can do.

Because it would mean that the UK would not recover until the EU decided it was time for the UK to recover.

It is worth remembering that those Anal Ists projecting this disaster have lived all their lives under the control of the EU and are basing their projections on an EU centric recovery.

It is bad enough having to listen to the WHO story of doom and gloom and denigrating every move to defeat Covid without having to listen to the same stuff over the UK recovery.

However if you would like to read a fairy story, I have one here ready made.

The forecast projects that euro area gross domestic product (GDP) growth will remain stable at 1.2% in 2020 and 2021. For the EU as a whole, growth is forecast to ease marginally to 1.4% in 2020 and 2021, down from 1.5% in 2019.

And, yes, I understand it is a UK government document. But that is what a worst case is. It is a do nothing and sink case. They are only used to justify doing something.

[edit]

Just to add, for Q1 2020

Overall stocks of crude oil and petroleum products increased by 3.1 per cent compared with Q1 2019. A 14 per cent increase in total petroleum products more than offset an 8.1 per cent decrease in stocks of primary oils. Physical product stocks in the UK reached 6.0 million tonnes, the highest level in 10 years. (Chart 3.6)

Yes we import oil, but we keep our coal fired power stations shut down through choice, not a lack of availability. Should we have power reductions, coal is a fast acting backstop. Our gas comes in via pipeline and not via truck through Dover meaning that gas fired power stations can also fill the gap.

This leaking of worst case documents is highly irksome and, I can only assume, comes from disgruntled civil servants.

Just today #1 son expounded on his anti government moan about how its all going to hell and vaccines are a myth. The first time I look again, I find out that my estimate of 58 days plus 3 weeks to write up the results is about exactly where the industry, controlling bodies and governments expect it to be.

#1 son said we should wait till the end of the year and see who is right.

Looks like I won't be waiting that long.

{sigh} .... better start stockpiling the toilet rolls again, then.

There are a few more bits of meat on the bones in the Sun article.

It looks as though lessons have been learned and that plans are being put in place to reduce the impact of the worst-case scenario. However, I still think that it will be a grim winter for many of us.

Possibly WM.

It will not be comfortable for anyone.

Then again it would be nice to know what the median and best cases were. Of course nobody is going to leak those, they might sound too good.

On the other hand, leaking a worst case scenario has its uses. When it is not that bad, people will be relieved. If you leak the best case everyone will be disappointed when we don't make it.

Looking at the list, this is a list of "do nothing and fail". For instance, reading this, you would assume the EU is the only country which produces food in the world. Or that we don't have shipping ports and can only get food via trucks from the EU.

With the correct government planning it is quite feasible for 50% of our food to arrive, Jan 1st, via ship, from the rest of the world. It could even be tariff free if we chose as we will be in command of that. Net effect? Food prices go down.

But without a disaster document like this, the plans will never be executed.

As for food production and competitiveness, it is worth reading a Dutch article on EU agricultural. Competitiveness.

After that, you can go and find one on the difference between US agricultural tarrifs and the EU regime.

When we leave, without EU tariffs being applied, the whole world is going to want to sell food to the UK. It is also going to be cheaper than the UK. Our citizens are used to paying EU prices. Unless we start issuing EU level tarrifs, we are going to be exposed to very low food prices.

EU tariffs on US milk are close to 90%. If we do not apply the same, our entire milk imports from France could switch to the US in a month, lowering our prices and crippling France.

But, in order to do this, we need a worst case.

Now we have another leak, this time from the bods at SAGE. Again the numbers are not denied by the government.

This one says that in a "reasonable worst-case scenario" there is the possibility of 85,000 Covid deaths between November and March 2021. Let's hope we don't get an "unreasonable worst-case scenario" eh. Talk about project fear.

The problems with all these models, predictions and scenarios are that the numbers are best guesses and their ranges are so broad as to be almost meaningless; for example: 20.5% of hospitalised patients are going into ICU (range: 1.5% - 35.25) and 23.3% (range: 1.2% - 43.3%) of all hospitalised patients dying.

They might as well drink tea mashed in a pot and read the leaves in the bottom of their cups for all the good they are doing.