In the news

I'm sure it will trickle down

Your friends in NZ seem like fuckwits.
I was in the long lockdowns in Auckland, and while they were pretty tough they have been shown to have reduced the deaths quite a lot.

What will France do with it?

One of the people couldnt leave to see his dying father and the other couldn’t leave because of the long prolonged lockdowns to work.

I think it’s easy to look from abroad but NZ is a tiny island but that imo isn’t comparable to the UK and from what they both said and none are anti vax. They felt she’s lied (anything thats not the government isn’t true was one I mind) and kept it going a lot longer than she should have especially when zero covid was hard to stop forever. Apparently the full thing was very authoritarian.

Comparing the UK vs NZ covid responses & deaths is utter nonsense - the two countries are vastly different in terms of connectivity with the rest of the world & population density.

I know a lot of people that were in NZ over the covid times or have since gone back - many of them are unhappy with how it was handled and they're not idiots or loons.

But covid wasn't her only downfall, people are unhappy with many other things there (eg the mess with the water infrastructure). It feels like labour are going to get battered there in the next election, she's been under pressure for a while so I'd imagine there was some party behind the scenes shenanigans to get her to move on in the hopes they can some how keep the positives from her past but then show that they've changed & can lead the country forward.

Also eagerly awaiting the next episode on C4 law…

I don't want to belittle your friends experiences, but those measures stopped a lot of people from dying. The govt decisions were supported by legit public health officials and backed by proper research.
They provided a lot of money to private businesses to support them, and overall comparatively NZ businesses did much better than most places globally.
Also the whole 'tiny island' thing is kind of grating to me as a new Zealander. It's 10% bigger in land size than the UK.

The proper research thing is now showing that a lot of that was nonsense and that’s not just down there that’s here too. You have about 5 million people on the island and the uk has about 60 ish million so it’s not comparable.

Edit : 67 million folk in the UK in 2021.

with a total population 2/3rd of London.

Also 'the mess with the water infrastructure' is another thing that has been weaponised hy the right-wing social media. Our water infrastructure is completely fucked, nothing has been maintained since the 50s, and the individual councils have been doing an awful job of it. The plan is essentially to nationalise it, but that would take away a cash cow from local councils and place limits on farmers who have ruined the fresh water environment.

The proper research thing

I’ve read this. Didn’t buy it at all.

Maybe it was pushed by social media, but it must have been on something else too as the people I'm hearing it from would only have heard it from mainstream media/word of mouth (fair enough it's a relatively small sample of maybe 50 people). Either way, if it's viewed as a mess then it is a mess, rightly or wrongly.

Though speaking as someone that had 1k litres an hour of mains water swirling round in a pool against the front of their house for the whole of December, I'm quite envious of water infrastructure that was maintained as recently as the 50's (thanks Thames Water)!

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-11-freedom-assembly-and-association#:~:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%20to,the%20protection%20of%20his%20interests.
no mention of of innocent until proven guilty

however, this does mention it exactly as you and someone else has said.
https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf

I'll admit I'm uniformed there.

But still, freedom is a human right and can be taken away.
Freedom of thought is a human right, a lady is in court next month for "thought-praying within a safe space" in Birmingham.

Human rights aren't as sacred and protected as you think. Even if they should be :)

Human rights aren't as sacred and protected as you think. Even if they should be :)

I agree with you, I don't think they are anywhere near as sacred or protected as they should be, there are examples of that everywhere. However.

Freedom of thought is a human right, a lady is in court next month for "thought-praying within a safe space" in Birmingham.

I'm pretty sure you're talking about this:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/isabel-vaughan-spruce-45-charged-25794626

Said lady is the director of March for Life UK, a pro life organisation. She knowingly broke an exclusion zone outside said Birmingham abortion clinic which had - quite rightly - been put in place to protect the people working there and the users of the service, who have every right to a safe abortion without getting hassled by god botherers.

So it's not a great example, unless you mean that access to safe abortion services is a human right, in which case you're quite right.

no mention of of innocent until proven guilty

It is article six of the HRA articles you have linked to, and once again specifically mentions innocent until proven guilty.

NZ is a tiny island

New Zealand is 10% bigger than the UK.

You have about 5 million people on the island and the uk has about 60 ish million so it’s not comparable.

Low population density overall but 89% living in cities, compared to the UK's 84%. Its quite similar.

I was meant population but never specified that

But much less international travel, you would think? NZ's great advantage was that policymakers could treat the country as a closed system, whereas in the UK the effects of closing the borders are massively greater given family and business ties to Europe.

The scale of the UK's contact tracing problem in the early weeks became unsolvably massive almost immediately. Silly example but remember the issue about Excel running out of rows (1.5 million or something)?

I'll admit I'm uniformed there.

But much less international travel, you would think?

I have no idea. I would assume that New Zealanders tend to travel abroad at a lower rate simply because they don't have so many countries right on their doorstep. Neither here nor there though, considering they closed their borders quickly.

Neither here nor there though, considering they closed their borders quickly.

I think it's pretty relevant - my point was that the economic and social cost to NZ of closing their borders is much lower than the cost to a country like the UK that isn't self sufficient in most basic goods. If you'd tried to pull up the drawbridge with strict hotel quarantine for 18 months we'd probably have starved.

I thought we could all at least agree that it was handled terribly here. Clearly no one has any idea what would have happened if we had approached it differently but looking at the death rate it seems the NZ approach was successful in saving lives.

In the UK we sacrificed lives 'in case of' all sorts of reasons, most of which we were unable to qualify in time to make informed decisions. Although a lot of people got their nose in the trough.

Your food stays in hotels?

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/23260111.rochford-reservoir-seal-nicknamed-nelson-locals/

Love this in the public comment section

You iz well bad at dem spelling and grammr lolz dont u no abt comma n full stops?

Apologies if I offended anyone with talk of harpoons etc up post.. it was in jest..

Nelson (blind in one eye) has become a local celebrity, I wonder if he has an opinion about the state of the nation.

I hope Nelson is enjoying the love, attention. And continues to evade capture.

More fish, squire?

#edit speaking to mum, apparently the horse and groom pub is having a roaring trade.. and Google maps saying reservoir is ‘busier than usual’

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