Petition to delay the after Xmas Sales

T

trueriver

New member
I am starting a petition about the sales starting during the Christmas relaxation of the Covid rules – will you sign it? It will go officially live when the next five people have signed.

The problem is that with the relaxation of Covid-secure rules over Christmas, many people will be away from home, and a dangerous minority of those will ignore the Prime Minister's request not to swarm into the sales before they go back to thir home region. REsult: people who have borough the virus from region A will mix with those who caught the virus from a visort from region B, and all thier contacts will take either of those out-of-region viruses back to their home regions.

Allowing the sales is likely to be as big a Christmas present to the virus as the Christmas bubbles will be. At least the bubbles are limited in size.

The after Christmas sales used to be known as "January sales" but the big shops competed with one another to start them earlier and earlier -- I am old enough to have watched that happen.

All my petition says is to keep the larger shops shut till 2nd Jan so that we go back to the January sales starting in January. It will be easy for the goventment to do: there is already a lway defining "larger shops" that are not allowed to open Christmas Day - they just need to extend that to a longer period this time round.

By waiting till 2nd Jan, not only will everyone be back in their home regions, but they will have had time to develop symptoms if they are going to, cutting the risk further.

The retailers will squawk that this hits their profits -- that is bogus. The stock they have in for the sales will sell whenever they are allowed to open.

petition.parliament.uk

Petition: Close all larger UK shops from 25th December to 1st January inclusive.

The dangers inherent in the relaxation of the Covid secure rules over Christmas will be multiplied if people crowd into the sales while still away from their homes. Closing shops avoids that risk The extended closure allows retail staff to enjoy three days with family instead of just the one.
petition.parliament.uk petition.parliament.uk

My petition:

Close all larger UK shops from 25th December to 1st January inclusive.

The dangers inherent in the relaxation of the Covid secure rules over Christmas will be multiplied if people crowd into the sales while still away from their homes. Closing shops avoids that risk The extended closure allows retail staff to enjoy three days with family instead of just the one.

Northern Ireland has already taken a lead in this respect. Wales and Germany have made similar provisions. It is right to allow restricted Christmas meet-ups after months of restrictions, but the sales are not part of Christmas in the same way as family get-togethers and multiply the risk needlessly. By moving the sales into January all over the UK no retailer will get a regional advantage. The definition of larger shops could follow the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004.

Click this link to sign the petition:

petition.parliament.uk

Petition: Close all larger UK shops from 25th December to 1st January inclusive.

The dangers inherent in the relaxation of the Covid secure rules over Christmas will be multiplied if people crowd into the sales while still away from their homes. Closing shops avoids that risk The extended closure allows retail staff to enjoy three days with family instead of just the one.
petition.parliament.uk petition.parliament.uk

Please share widely via social media, email lists, and so on.
Warmly
River~~
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PS I hope this is not regarded as being "too political" for this forum: if it is then perhaps the moderators could send me a direct message and delete this post.
 
I am afraid that either way people who are minded to break the rules will. For the last few years I have noticed that the sales are no longer sales really, they are trumpeted as such by shops but the price do not go down and yes they now start even before Christmas with shops eager to get rid of their tat to clear valuable space for the next round of tat. You can how buy Easter eggs before Christmas. Many areas are in tier 4 anyway which means shops have to shut unless they are essential like food retailers.

The problem here is that with the mess that has been made of handling the pandemic and the consequent mess we are in now 9 months later and after a disappointing Christmas people are starting to do as they please ever more. The government were only right about one thing only, that people would tire of the rules, but unfortunately they did not do enough to get matters under control so that we could enjoy a break now and then.
 
Firstly: my petition was overtaken by events. It is now purely academic as the stores in the most affected areas are shut anyway, and for far longer than I was asking.

Secondly: I totally agree that many individuals will ignore any rule any time they can get away with doing so. Even more so when it is presented as a request.
That is exactly why I wanted the shops shut. The stores can't afford to floor the law in the way that individuals are doing. Of the shops were shut them the shoppers would not be attracted to the sales.

Thirdly: it is high time in my view that the rules were enforced strictly. Pictorial experiments show us that we don't need harsh penalties to deter rule breaking: what is needed is a sense that there is a large chance of a penalty at all.

In this context I am appalled that ppl attending raves, large weddings, etc are not being automatically fined (subject to appeal via the courts). It is long past the point where it is plausible for anyone to say they didn't know, therefore it is long past the point where it was appropriate for police to advise on the rules.

Fourthly: we should consider mandatory quarantine for those who repeatedly get fined. The legislation was passed in March for mandatory quarantine bit has never been used. Sounds draconian, but it is clear that some people are unable or unwilling to respect the safety of others

Fifthly: if police do nonetheless give "advice" the details of the person should be recorded, so that the same Preston does not get away with it time and time again (I know people who boast of doing so)

Finally: yes I also agree that the sales are not what they once were: but that is a discussion for another day. If you'd like to make that point in another thread I will say more there.
 
Well we no longer have the police "force" we used to have and although I would support use of the army the government seem scared to as there is some nonsense about a police state.
 
Well, I don't think the concerns ppl have about police surveillance and communications are nonsense -- but that too is a discussion for another time.

I also do not want to see the army being used to directly arrest people, demand their Id, and so on. That got the UK state into a lot of difficulties in Northern Ireland, and my analysis was that it exacerbated an already difficult situation with the Catholic and Republican citizens who (at the time rightly) already felt treated a second class citizens.

However I do think there is a valid role for the army in supporting the civil power. The army could be used to kettle ravers in the area they have chosen for their rave. Exit from the kettle would be supervised by the police (just to be clear: the regular civilian police, not some paramilitary or military police unit) and names taken and fines issued. Those who were repeat offenders would be tagged to identify future gatherings.

Those who refused to identify themselves (or provide convincing proof of identity) would be held over for court the next day. Having chosen to meet together, there would be no point in keeping them in cells - thet clearly have no concerns about social distancing and would continue to be kept in the same large group they had chosen to be part of when arrested - segregation into genders and hold in communal custody in any convenient place that provides toilet access. After court, those who had refused to identify themselves or were found to be repeat offenders would be tagged.

Those found in a group while already tagged would be curfewed to remain at home 24/7 until the pandemic is over in their area. The tags would also alert police to such gatherings while forming, and allow them to be dispersed (with fines as usual) before the army was needed.

Tags would only be removed when the activities they were engaged in on arrest became lawful again (assuming tht there were enough tags to go round).

Again the army could secure the perimeter.

The army would not carry lethal force, neither in the kettle nor when securing the detention facility. They would be deployed in sufficient numbers that lethal and even "less-lethal" force would not be needed. Keep them contained by sheer force of disciplined numbers.

In general, I tend towards the anti-rules end of the spectrum (though I am a lefty anarchist rather than a right wing libertarin like our PM). However there does come a time when even I am prepared to use non-lethal compulsion to prevent ppl behaving in a way that is now known to hurt others.

Which others will be hurt? We do not know.

How many others will be hurt? we can make a statistical guess based on the R number and the ratio of the time the ravers are together divided by the number of days ppl remain infectious.

Example: If R is 2, and they were raving for 12 hours before arrest, and people remain infectious for 5 days, then each infected person will have infected about 0.2 other people. If the current prevalence of the virus in the area is 1%, then statistically each person in the crowd infects 0.002 new people during the event, who would go on to infect a further 0.004 people who go on to infect another 0.008 people in the next tn to fifteen days (until the tracing service catches up!). That is about one new or cascaded infection for each 70 people in the crowd. If there were 500 people present (as in the rave in the ancient church) they are collectively responsible for one direct case, and 7 or 8 new cases after two further cycles of infection

Not many, but enough to be part of the problem. If a crowd lynches one person they are each guilty of murder. I suggest that if a crowd knowingly and recklessly infects one or more people then everyone in the crowd should be liable.

I am not suggesting that they be prosecuted for poisoning (it would be too hard to prove to the satisfaction of a jury). I am suggesting that when the expected number of infections is more than 1, it justifies bringing in the army to be deployed as I suggest.

The trigger level for calling in the army and tagging should be calculated on the basis of the R number and prevelance at the time and place of the event.

In parallel to that, smaller gatherings, and mask refusniks (without reasonable excuse) should also be automatically fined. After multiple repeat offences they could be curfewd to home with a tag.

I do not think the problem is people getting tired of the rules. I think it is that people have learnt that the rules can be broken with impunity -- most of us know personally someone who has done so, and we all know a former govt advisor who blatantly opened up loopholes instead of making an appointment for an eye test.

It is time for serious, visible, enforcement to replace the serious, visible transgressions.
 
PS -- actually the numbers I gave are an underestimate as they use the R number of the population at large. Once we know the R numbers applying to a super-spreader event we should use those. My guess (it is only a guess) is that they will be five or ten times larger, perhaps more. One infected skier managed to infect dozens of people simply by casual contact in while sying in ski-lodges. Contacts as ravers are usually someowhat closer than in a hotel or ski-lodge