Blaming the voters

In the Times, Matthew Parris wrote: "this Prime Minister is ultimately our [the electorate's] fault." I tweeted that this was absolutely right, but got a little pushback. I should therefore elaborate.

What I and Matthew meant was that Johnson is not doing anything unexpected. He is merely living down to what everybody knew about him. As Matthew wrote:

There was never any reason for confidence in Boris Johnson’s diligence, his honesty, his directness, his mastery of debate, his people-skills with colleagues, his executive ability or his policy grip. We’d seen no early demonstration of any of these qualities but we just blanked that out.

Voters, then, are getting what they voted for. Those who voted Labour in 2001 could say of the Iraq war “I never voted for that”. Those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 could say of the tripling of tuition fees “I never voted for that.” Those who voted Tory last year, however, cannot say the same. They got what they wanted. They should own it.

There are some objections to this, most of which I find inadequate.

The first is that voters were deceived by our dishonest grifter media. There’s some truth in this. The media does have some influence, if less than its critics claim.

But people have agency. They are responsible for believing the media’s lies: the victims of conmen are not always wholly deserving of our sympathy. And voters are quite capable of being wrong without the media’s help. They are systematically mistaken about many social facts, such as how many immigrants there are. They don’t understand economics (or, I suspect, the social sciences generally). Some of their preferences – for benefit cuts and a hostile environment for immigrants - are plain vicious. And they have cognitive biases which support inequality. The media amplify these failings. But to believe they are the sole cause of them is to regard voters as childlike noble savages who are corrupted by a few billionaires. That’s just romantic twaddle.

You don’t need to believe in Marxian ideas of false consciousness (a phrase Marx never used) to accept this. Bryan Caplan and Jason Brennan have said similar things from a non-Marxian point of view.

Another objection to Parris’s claim is that the Tories got only a minority of the vote and so it is our electoral system to blame rather than the voters.

Let’s leave aside the fact that the electorate support this system: they rejected mild reform in the 2011 referendum. And let’s also leave aside the fact that it’s not just Tory voters to blame. Those who abstained or voted Lib Dem thereby allowing a Tory candidate to win in their constituency are also guilty.

And let’s also leave aside the fact those using this argument must be careful – because it will undoubtedly be weaponized by the right to delegitimize even a mildly social democratic government.

Instead, there’s another problem. If voters do have vicious, biased and ill-informed preferences – whether caused by the media or anything else – then the last thing we should want is for parliament to better reflect these. (Of course, some Labour supporters might have such bad preferences too.)

Our problem is not how to get a more representative parliament but rather how to filter voters’ preferences so they reflect the wisdom rather than stupidity of crowds.

 Traditionally, small-c conservatives have been alive to this question. It is why Edmund Burke thought that MPs’ judgment should over-ride the “hasty opinion” of their constituents. And it’s why they have prized an independent civil service and judiciary, as these too restrain hasty, silly and nasty preferences: it is no accident that populists everywhere attack such institutions.

But there is a more radical alternative – to use devices of deliberative (pdf) democracy such as citizens juries to increase our chances of getting the best rather than worst of public opinion. It is these we need more than electoral reform.

You might object here that it is futile to complain about the electorate as we must work with the world as it is, not as we’d like it.

Public opinion, however, is malleable – a fact our most successful recent Prime Ministers have recognised. Thatcher sought to change it not just by persuasion but by introducing a property-owning democracy to incentivize people to vote Tory. And Blair’s expansion of higher education has (inadvertently?) created a large cohort of liberal-minded youngsters: there’s a reason why Tories are attacking universities.

 There’s a further objection to Parris’s claim. Some of us (not enough!) voted Labour. Surely we’re not to blame?

There’s an irony here. Many people using this to exculpate themselves also believe in the idea of collective guilt – that, for example, Britons collectively were responsible for the slave trade and imperialism. But if our ancestors, many of whom never owned slaves or participated in imperialism, were collectively guilty of these crimes, mightn’t we too be collectively responsible for the Tory government?

Mightn’t even we Labour supporters be partly to blame by for example not campaigning sufficiently or sufficiently well or for making bad political choices ourselves – be they choosing a Labour leader who didn’t appeal sufficiently to voters or not accepting the Brexit referendum result?

Which brings me to another irony. Part of Johnson’s appeal is like Trump’s: it’s a backlash against metropolitan elites who think they know better than “the people”. And yet those of us who claim that (some) voters are ill-informed and vicious are making the same mistake Hillary Clinton made when she called Trump supporters “deplorables”: we’re inviting a backlash against us arrogant know-alls.

This is a dilemma. The solution to it – if there is one – is to try to separate talk about outcomes from talk about process. We must ask: what sort of processes and institutions are likely to best deliver policies that are both good (by whatever lights you want) and democratic? Few people, however, want such a debate.

Comments

[Phil]

I would genuinely like to hear from anyone who
voted Tory in the belief that
a) Johnson would be a good PM leading a good government
or
b) a Johnson government would probably be terrible, but this didn't matter

and from anyone on the Left who withheld their vote from Labour (in a seat held or winnable by Labour) in the belief that

i) they were not helping to elect a Tory government
or
ii) they probably were helping to elect a Tory government, but this didn't matter

Now that it's generaly agreed that the government elected with a big majority last December is a really terrible government, I think a lot of conversations would be clearer and more honest if some people acknowledged that they were in one of these groups. There's also an element of morbid curiosity on my part, admittedly.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

When it became obvious that the Tories would be having a leadership contest and that Boris would be one of the 2 candidates I joined them just so I could vote for whoever was the other contender. I did and I'm no longer a member and I don't regret the £25, even if it went to them.

That said I think you should add all those who succeeded in thwarting May's deal and did their best to thwart Brexit, that was the equivalent of calling Leave voters deplorables, but then they were calling those voters thick, racist bigots anyway. That was a smart move.

Another area that bears consideration is how we select MPs. Without being too cynical as I look round Parliament I'm not sure there's a competent cabinet amongst the 650. Too many mean well but that doesn't make them good administrators.

As a Leave voter I'm not happy with Boris but I'll live with that result, bad as its been, as long as we get Brexit. My ideal would be a ditching of Boris in January.

[Phil]

What does "as long as we get Brexit" mean, Bloke - and how will you know when we've got it? I mean, we aren't in the EU any more. Is there more to it than that?

[Bloke in North Dorset]

At this stage I will live with "no deal", but I think there'll be a trade deal that can be built on.

Bizarrely, for me, we're fighting over state aid. In the run up to the referendum I was in 2 minds and someone said that I should vote Remain because the EU would a Corbyn overstatement's spending plans. That cemeted it for me, if the British public elected Corbyn, much as I would have hated it, I wanted him to be able to govern and implement his policies because for me it was always about Parliament being sovereign. That's also why as a Brexit voter I was happy with the Gina Miller ruling.

[Dipper]

I voted Johnson. The pandemic has screwed things up, but overall I'm not any more unhappy than I expected.

Churchill was rubbish. He only ever got one thing right in his life; the realisation that any capitulation at all after Dunkirk would have meant German rule. Before and after he was as bad as Johnson.

We have had 40 years of being run by people who found it easier to just take whatever Brussels were telling them and then blame Brussels for the result. Breaking the Brussels addiction is going to take time and strength.

I'd have preferred not to have given lots of Remainers the opportunity to sound off about international law, but scratch me and I'm a northern working class male, and when push comes to shove you need to let people know you will not be pushed around, and this may hurt me more than it hurts you, but I will make damn sure it hurts you, so perhaps we could come up with an agreement?

And who should we have had? Jeremy Hunt? There's lots to admire about Jeremy Hunt, but if he had won then right now we would be being told why we must accept FOM, being in the single market, the supremacy of the ECJ, paying large amounts into the EU, and probably why it was only right for us to pay billions into the Covid bonds.

Just for clarity, a Remainer House of Commons voted to hold a referendum, decided on the question, and then said they didn't know what the answer meant. If you want to start with stupid and incompetent, I'd start right there.

[Jim]

The difficulty is that human beings are nasty cheating lying creatures who band together to screw over other groups of nasty cheating lying creatures. Aided and abetted by lawyers, lobbyists and media moguls. The winner takes all.

A pretty vile system that goes under the name 'adversarial democracy'. Which may be where process and institution meet - and fail.

Then we ask whether a good way of governing the country facing an existential threat - war - say is necessarily the same as a good way of governing the country during long periods of peace. Different tools for different jobs.

Personally I would like a system that is more collegiate and cuts down on speechifying and has rather more verifiable text and spreadsheets and openness. I would like politics to be a very tedious job, a bit more like watchmaking with precision the watchword. Cheating and lying to be eliminated and influences to be openly visible.

The democracy element seems useful if only to prevent stasis, the adversarial element theoretically allows a full-on clear and honest exposure of the issues - except it doesn't. The full-on, clear and honest exposure is a good thing. Banding together in groups to win everything seems very bad.

Probably necessary to abandon the party system which begs the question - who to we vote for?

[d]

Friend at start of coronavirus lockdown "I'm glad we have Boris in charge because he's decisive"
Me "But he's just spent ages being indecisive and now we're locking down later than we should have."
Friend "True. But you can't say he's not decisive"
Me "Why????"
Friend "You can just tell. He's a proper Englishman"

[AllanW]

Unable to share this post on Facebook as it has been 'blocked' worldwide.

Thought you might like to know.

[Blissex]

«Our problem is not how to get a more representative parliament but rather how to filter voters’ preferences so they reflect the wisdom rather than stupidity of crowds.»

High-strength wykhamism (or platonic yearning for "philosopher-kings" even if collective rather than individual) throughout and especially here: as if conflicts of interest between lobbies and classes did not exit, and the goal of government is the choice of the "best" policy, without asking "for whom?".

How can you have the "wisdom of crowds" when there are within the crowd segments with opposite interests? Only perhaps by fully believing that There Is No Alternative to thatcherism and also believing in the "end of history".

Democracy is designed not to deliver the "wisdom of crowds", but to deliver:

* Ensure that majorities and not elites are accountable for their policy choices, so they cannot blame someone else for what happens.
* Ensure that the struggle for power among elite factions is not physical, but based on their popularity with the majority of voters.
* Ensure that bad consequences happen to majorities who make bad choices, and good consequences to majorities who make good choices, so they learn to make better choices.

As to the last point that includes among bad consequences the impoverishment and even dissolution of political entities where majorities consistently make bad choices. No state or nation is forever, plenty of them have disappeared after making a series of bad choices, or even just because of bad luck.

[LJC]

"Let’s leave aside the fact that the electorate support this system: they rejected mild reform in the 2011 referendum. And let’s also leave aside the fact that it’s not just Tory voters to blame. Those who abstained or voted Lib Dem thereby allowing a Tory candidate to win in their constituency are also guilty."

And, of course, those people who voted Labour in constituencies where a Lib Dem, Green, Plaid or SNP candidate was most likely to defeat the Tory, and the Labour leadership who refused to even consider tactical withdrawals. Add together the votes for Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP and Plaid and it was easily over 50% of the total; it only required the left and centre-left to put aside their differences to stop Boris once and for all. The Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid managed an agreement on seats, but it needed Labour to make the difference.

[Blissex]

«What I and Matthew meant was that Johnson is not doing anything unexpected. He is merely living down to what everybody knew about him.»

And indeed he has kept both his explicit and implicit promises: brexit is done, and the interests of property and finance and other business rentiers have been protected (not perfectly, but enough). Then it is not all about the leader: in general governments work well when ministers and civil servants are working well. As to that the current cabinet has been obviously chosen for political loyalty, yet they have done only relatively minor idiocies. Life pretty much continues as normal for most voters, especially the affluent property-owning ones.

Politics is mostly about interests, and as to those Tony Blair (my usual quote) said quite correctly that “people judge us on their instincts about what they believe our instincts to be”. The people who voted for Johnson were right about their instincts as to on whose side Johnson's instincts are, certainly not those of renters, workers or even productive businesses. My usual argument is that many voters are corrupt, and they are well pleased when they elect an equally corrupt party and PM who pander to their corruption, whether that is Berlusconi or Bush or Osborne etc.

Quoting again from Grover Norquist, this is how politics really works, the "vote-moving primary issue":

«on the vote-moving primary issue, everybody's got their foot in the center and they're not in conflict on anything. The guy who wants to spend all day counting his money, the guy who wants to spend all day fondling his weaponry, and the guy who wants to go to church all day may look at each other and say, "That's pretty weird, that's not what I would do with my spare time, but that does not threaten my ability to go to church, have my guns, have my money, have my properties, run by my business, home-school my kids.»
«Spending's a problem because spending's not a primary vote-moving issue for anyone in the coalition. Everybody around the room wishes you'd spend less money. Don't raise my taxes; please spend less. Don't take my guns; please spend less. Leave my faith alone; please spend less. If you keep everybody happy on their primary issue and disappoint on a secondary issue, everybody grumbles … no one walks out the door. So the temptation for a Republican is to let that one slide. And I don't have the answer as to how we fix that. But it does explain how could it possibly be that everyone in the room wants something and doesn't end up getting it because it's not a vote-moving issue.»

He also added:

«Pat Buchanan came into this coalition and said, “You know what? I have polled everybody in the room and 70 percent think there are too many immigrants; 70 percent are skeptics on free trade with China. I will run for President as a Republican; I will get 70 percent of the vote.”
He didn't ask the second question … do you vote on that subject?»

Eventually it became a vote-moving issue for enough people that Pat Buchanan version 2, also known as Donald Trump, got nominated and elected.

[pablopattito]

Technically we didn't vote for Johnson in the GE. We voted for our preferred party based on their manifestos.

The Tories elected Johnson as leader. First the Tory MPs voted for him to be in the final two. And then Tory members voted for him to be leader.

So technically they're to blame. It's what I'd expect from Tory members, but Tory MPs have to take a lot of blame for voting for someone they all knew would be good for their careers but terrible for the country. Just like Republican politicians have to take a lot of the blame for electing Trump to lead their party.

[Blissex]

«Add together the votes for Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP and Plaid and it was easily over 50% of the total;»

But the LibDems are mostly thatcherites, centre-right to right-wing, and their voters are mostly rentiers who detest "communism" as in the mild social-democracy of Corbyn's programmes.

Typical LibDem voters are "shy" Conservative voters, not would-be Labour or PC or SNP or Green voters. Most LibDem voters would rather that the Conservatives won than Labour, if their party did not win.

Of course the best realistic LibDem situation is Coalition: with the Conservatives because of natural convergence of interests, and with Labour to prevent it from enacting "communist" policies (and that is also the plan of the LiberalTory entrysts of the Mandelson Tendency).

[Blissex]

«It's what I'd expect from Tory members, but Tory MPs have to take a lot of blame for voting for someone they all knew would be good for their careers but terrible for the country.»

if you really think that politics can be about what is good “for the country” intended in the wider sense you live on the same strange wykehamist parallel-reality planet as our blogger :-).
So far Johnson has been pretty good for the Conservative Party, its MPs, its members, its voters, and its "sponsors". That's "the country" that matters.

[Blissex]

Many decades ago George Mikes, a humour author, in a celebrated book about english culture wrote about politics something somewhat dated in the details but that has not changed much in the whole:

“The Labour party is a fair compromise between Socialism and Bureaucracy; the Beveridge Plan is a fair compromise between being and not being a Socialist at the same time; the Liberal Party is a fair compromise between the Beveridge Plan and Toryism; the Independent Labour Party is a fair compromise between Independent Labour and a political party; the Tory-reformers are a fair compromise between revolutionary conservatism and retrograde progress; and the whole British political life is a huge and non-compromising fight between compromising Conservatives and compromising Socialists.”

That “political life is a huge and non-compromising fight” is because of interests, except during the Thatcher-Blair-Osborne/Clegg era where there was no political fight because all parties were variants on the whig globalist theme.

BTW for an update on "Independent Labour Party" read "SDP" or "Change UK".

[Blissex]

«Most LibDem voters would rather that the Conservatives won than Labour, if their party did not win.»

That was also the position of the SDP and SDP+Liberal alliance: their main goal was to ensure that Margaret Thatcher would win two elections despite being very unpopular:

1979: 11.53m Lab., 13.70m Con., 4.31m Libs
1983: 08.46m Lab., 13.01m Con., 7.78m SDP+Libs
1987: 10.03m Lab., 13.74m Con., 7.34m SDP+Libs
1992: 11.56m Lab., 14.09m Con., 6.00m LD

Especially in 1983 and 1987 there were HUGE onstensibly anti-Conservative majorities, but the purpose of the SDP was to spoil the election for the "trots", and all those Alliance voters and politicians just wanted to keep Labour out of power.

[ltr]

September 21, 2020

Coronavirus

UK

Cases   ( 398,625)
Deaths   ( 41,788)

Deaths per million   ( 615)

Germany

Cases   ( 274,717)
Deaths   ( 9,476)

Deaths per million   ( 113)

At least there might be a care about whether the public health structure of the UK has been allowed to deteriorate in recent years.

[Blissex]

«At least there might be a care about whether the public health structure of the UK has been allowed to deteriorate in recent years.»

The "public health structure" is not that "of the UK", it is that of the *servant classes* of the UK.
The master and professional classes have the option of going private, on "silver" plans (e.g. BUPA) if middle/upper-middle class, or "gold" plans if upper class. Look at it from the point of view of millions of middle class owners of a cheap bottom-range property in the south-east or London:

* They are getting £30,000-£40,000 a year of tax-free property capital gains and many paid off their mortgage on properties bought in the 1970s-1980s and are living rent-free.

* If needs must, they know very well that they can easily remortgage etc. and go private for comfort and speed, if they don't already have a corporate "silver" plan because they are managers.

* Why should they care about the bronze or tin plans for the servant classes, other than asking their Conservative or LibDem or New Labour MPs to make those bronze and tin plans as cheap as possible to keep their taxes down?

[ltr]

The "public health structure" is not that "of the UK", it is that of the *servant classes* of the UK.

The master and professional classes have the option of going private, on "silver" plans (e.g. BUPA) if middle/upper-middle class, or "gold" plans if upper class. Look at it from the point of view of millions of middle class owners of a cheap bottom-range property in the south-east or London: ...

[ Really important.

Please do continue and expand on this observation. ]

[ltr]

The "public health structure" is not that "of the UK", it is that of the *servant classes* of the UK.

[ Again, a terrific comment that calls for further development.

I am so grateful. ]

[TowerBridge]

I think you are missing the point slightly of voting reform to give us a fairer system. It would achieve the same ends as you are advocating, by allowing preferences to be filtered by the number of parties and people represented.
Those parties and people must necessarily compromise, consider and, because they cannot behave in an overly theatrical way, slow down the thinking process.
It would achieve the same end as citizens juries and also has the benefit of a) encouraging a different type of person to enter politics, like women b) enhancing the legitimacy of the policy and rule making process by ensuring that everyone feels represented and c) allowing knowledge to grow out of a diverse range of sources - a point you write about often in relation to markets and Hayek.

The idea of citizens juries should not be overlooked and would complement the above. Indeed at least one reform in this area is better than none.

[georgesdelatour]

Chris has repeatedly talked up the supposed benefits of deliberative democracy. I’m very sceptical.

My guess is, if you put a small, randomly selected group of people together in a room to make policies, informal leaders will quickly emerge. Individuals with “alpha” personalities - more charisma, better debating skills etc - will tend to assume dominant roles in the committee. Individuals who dissent from the the alpha’s opinions can be put under greater social pressure to conform, because they can be made to face the opprobrium of the group. Solomon Asch-type effects will kick in, which don’t apply to individual voters with secret ballots in an electorate of millions.

[georgesdelatour]

A great imponderable in both 2015 and 2019 was the Scotland factor. To put it bluntly, Tam Dalyell’s “West Lothian Question” has come back to haunt Labour.

In both elections many English voters assumed that Labour could only form a government if it secured a deal with the SNP. In practice, this would mean SNP MPs going through the lobbies to impose on the English laws which would not apply to the Scots. Those same English voters also feared that Labour would secure that SNP support with promises of financial largesse at England’s expense. Maybe neither of these beliefs were true. But they may still have influenced voting behaviour.

[Blissex]

«enhancing the legitimacy of the policy and rule making process by ensuring that everyone feels represented»

Note that our blogger is making the opposite argument, that to ensure legitimacy those who express "«vicious, biased and ill-informed preferences» should have no representation: «the last thing we should want is for parliament to better reflect these».

Consider for example the long campaign to ensure no representation for the "trots" led by Corbyn, because of their "treason" against thatcherism and Likud, and their "treason" in favour of brexit and Putin, expressed as «vicious, biased and ill-informed preferences» for equality and nationalisation, "antisemitic" persecutions, insufficient zeal for the 2nd referendum, and willingness to have detente with Russia.

[ltr]

September 22, 2020

Coronavirus

UK

Cases   ( 403,551)
Deaths   ( 41,825)

Deaths per million ( 615)

[ Forgive me, but I find the data distressing and do think the data reflect a severe political failing. ]

[ltr]

September 22, 2020

Coronavirus

UK

Cases ( 403,551)
Deaths ( 41,825)

Deaths per million ( 615)

Germany

Cases ( 275,551)
Deaths ( 9,481)

Deaths per million ( 113)

[ltr]

I think it matters how we vote, what the ideas of our leaders are. I cannot believe we would have had so disastrous a coronavirus experience were Jeremy Corbyn not ruined by media red-baiting and anti-Semitism pretense. Corbyn was no communist and no anti-Semite, but Corbyn wanted to strengthen the public health system and for that Rupert Murdoch and company needed to ruin Corbyn and in so doing ruined us.

[The truth]

Johnson may be buffon of moderate competnce but he will go down in history as one of the great PMs. It was now or never and he got the UK out of Europe.

In the end the rest will pale into insignificance as he got the main thing right

[The truth]

Ltr,

So what 95% of Covid deaths are people with months left on the clock. Covid numbers looks scary but make no real difference to average life expectancy.

The real damage is the social harm caused by lockdown

[ltr]

So what; 95% of Covid deaths are people with months left on the clock. Covid numbers looks scary but make no real difference to average life expectancy.

The real damage is the social harm caused by lockdown.

[ What is the point of writing like a monster? To me, lives are precious and need to be preserved. ]

[Almar]

"So what 95% of Covid deaths are people with months left on the clock."

This is not necessarily correct. E.g. according to the ONS, in 2018 a man aged 65 could expect to live for another 18.6 years. Even at age 90 a male could expect to live for another 4.1 years.

[Talking Head]

What do we think voting systems can do? Boris came second in an unpopularity contest between two privately-educated, over-confident, middle-aged, middle-class white male mediocrities. But at least we had the choice. Democracy is not about optimising, but minimising damage. It really could be worse.

[James Charles]

“The average life expectancy for an 80 year old is 9 years for males 10 years for females.”
60,000 excess deaths from Covid-19. Stuart Mcdonald {an actuary}. https://twitter.com/ActuaryByDay/status/1246866119597621248
He was interviewed on More or Less on the 17/06/2020.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08h4x0b 04.43 min. in.
"Hopefully this goes some way to addressing the false narrative that these people would have died soon anyway, and we’ll hear rather less of it from journalists and commentators who ought to know better."
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1246866119597621248.html

[Dipper]

what is this latest lockdown meant to achieve? The reactions of many are that we are trying to eliminate the virus from the UK. This is an almost impossible task. The cost will be enormous.

If we introduce these measures on this level of hospitalisation now, then we will will be introducing the same measures in ten years time. By which time the economy will be in ruins and our society destroyed.

There is nothing in the actuary's statement about Covid that cannot be made for flu or pneumonia. Should we go into lockdown every time flu gets going?

[ltr]

September 23, 2020

Coronavirus

Israel

Cases   ( 200,041)
Deaths   ( 1,316)

Deaths per million   ( 143)

-----------------------------------

July 4, 2020

Coronavirus

Israel

Cases ( 29,170)
Deaths ( 330)

Deaths per million ( 36)

Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus in June, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 200,041 cases in the small country as compared to 85,307 in all through all of mainland China.

Israel has tragically doubled and gone far beyond double the number of coronavirus cases in mainland China.

[ltr]

China gave up growth from the middle of January through February but has been growing since March, with growth evidently quickening. The spread of the coronavirus has been almost completely controlled since March:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-23/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-U0L2Be2IP6/index.html

September 23, 2020

Chinese mainland reports 10 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths

The Chinese mainland registered 10 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, all from overseas, the National Health Commission said on Wednesday.

This is the 38th consecutive day without domestic transmissions on the Chinese mainland. No deaths from the disease were reported while 8 patients were discharged from hospitals.

The total number of confirmed cases stands at 85,307 and the death toll at 4,634 on the Chinese mainland, while 385 asymptomatic patients are under medical observation.

Chinese mainland new imported cases

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-23/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-U0L2Be2IP6/img/ac9e52f44544487cb1e23bed5aa39116/ac9e52f44544487cb1e23bed5aa39116.jpeg

Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-23/Chinese-mainland-reports-10-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-U0L2Be2IP6/img/5146fd6ded2f4ecb8cf13d5912af8853/5146fd6ded2f4ecb8cf13d5912af8853.jpeg

[dilbert dogbert]

Just for your information, facebook blocks your URL when it is posted. I just copy and paste to get the guts of your post accepted. Fucking facebook. Happy to let QAnon run rampant and block a bit of interesting argument.

[ltr]

September 23, 2020

Coronavirus

UK

Cases   ( 409,729)
Deaths   ( 41,862)

Deaths per million   ( 616)

Germany

Cases   ( 277,877)
Deaths   ( 9,498)

Deaths per million   ( 113)

[Blissex]

«what is this latest lockdown meant to achieve? [...] If we introduce these measures on this level of hospitalisation now, then we will will be introducing the same measures in ten years time.»

ere are two distinct things here, the substance thing is that eventually a cure or a vaccine will be found. If they are not found, the SARS-CoViD-2 virus will become permanent and for some decades it will be killing a lot of people above 45-55 (and some below that age too), unless it is permanently "contained" with lock-downs; once upon a time something like that was happening with polio for example.
All current governments are trying to do is to contain it so the hospitals are not overwhelmed until the vaccine or cure is found.

Following the theme of this post, the second thing is to do that without really telling voters that the situation is that, probably either because voters don't want to be told that, or because many of them would say "who cares about the losers".

«By which time the economy will be in ruins and our society destroyed.»

What the COVID-19 situation has shown us is that a lot of jobs, especially in the entertainment and travel sectors, are sort of luxuries: millions of people working in those sectors are not really needed, because extensive travelling and entertainment (including most of shopping) are "nice to have" things, not "need to have", form example having a restaurant's cook and waiter prepare and serve you food.

The problem is what to do with all those people working in not-indispensable jobs. Hopefully not Soylent Green. Some can be recycled in similar jobs, like cooking for take-away and delivery. In an ideal world taxes would be increased a lot to soak up the excess of unspent money, and transitions to new jobs in jobs not involving close contact would be financed by the government.

But as per the theme of this post, many rentier voters would be strongly opposed to that, as they want the stream of capital gains and rent payments to continue unchanged.

[ltr]

Israel recorded 9,762 coronavirus cases this today. The health and resultant economic consequences of an incautious opening of schools and businesses have been devastating:

September 23, 2020

Coronavirus

Israel

Cases   ( 203,136)
Deaths   ( 1,316)

Deaths per million   ( 143)