laukat

I think this is the key part of why the Scottish Government are generally percieved to be performing better in response to the pandemic. Its not that the Scottish Government is making the right decisions it is that they are willing to be questioned every day on them. Today's breifing there were perfectly understandible questions and concerns on how the return of students had been handled by the Scottish Government and by Universities. I have child just starting University so appreciated the more detailed explanation of what they were advising students and what thinking lay behind it. Also appreciated the honesty of saying that they don't always get it right and some decisions have conseuqences. The UK Government has been completely absent and unwilling to answer any questions so the impression is given that they don't have confidence in explaining their thinking and thats its motivated by other interests.

Unfortunately the Scottish Government financial powers pretty much eliminate any possibility of them filling the black hole in football income or more generally sport revenues.T he same is also true of funding hospitality and Tourism as well as other sectors that can't get get their income streams re-established. The only government with the power to provide funding on this scale is the UK Government. Yesteday's annoucement from the chancellor was not the re-instatement of the eraly days fulough scheme required but instead a further watering down of financial support with a longer end date. It also forces businesses to open to get help unless they want to take on loans.

They had to as part of the terms of taking on the lease of the site. The Scottish Government have the lease until January but in reality will probably extend it until at least April. Decomissioning company needs to be in place to decomission as soon as th Scottish Government ends the lease so you can expect if the Scottish Government extend the lease the Aecom contract will run to 3 months post the lease extension The facility is currently being stepped up as a west of scotland centre to bring down outpatient backlogs and to avoid people attending acute facilities where they are more likely to come in contact with patients that have the virus. Its also currently being used to train medical staff so they can get extra staff in place for an extra staff needed at current acute facilities. It still has the beds etc in it so can easily be stood up as extra capacity if required. Conversley the NHS Nightingale facilities in NHS England were closed and are now having to rapidly reopen at a considerable cost such as rebuying equipment, reinstalling equipment etc Which Government do you think had the right approach?

The squad does look it has a nice balance to it. No obvious positional gaps or lack of cover and plenty of formation options. The average age of the squad looks like its also came down significantly. However one of the big plus points is I think for the first time in quite a few seasons we don't have any jobbers. Only Cardle, Foster and Graham are over 30 and none of them to my mind are in the jobbing category, they all look like leaders. I expect Foster and Graham in particular to demand standards are met by the younger players. Ominous optimism

Remember when we used to look at Italy and think how could their government let that happen, why were they so unprepared? Looks like if Governements take the right action is is possible to influence the outcome. https://www.ft.com/content/6831be3e-2711-4ea3-8f62-daa82cf9ca11

Yip and the answer is they aren't. Next question is how do Thistle survive. The chancellors annoucement put petrol on a burning fire. Seems like some of the clubs are realising this The problem is still the same. How do you operate any businesss when you have to pay the wages even at 66% and you're income is reduced by 43? Stopping the leagues doesn't stop the players needing to be paid unless you make them redundant but that involves pay offs and now you're income is zero because you can't play games. Unless insurance policies cover this sort of thing or there are clauses in players contracts catering for this its hard to see how clubs without large cash reserves or a wealthy benefactor are going to survive.

I believe the UK Governement scheme is also capped at £697 per month using the example in @Dick Dastardly comment the employee will only get the maximum £697 payment and their actual income will not be £1666 it'll be £1507.25. No idea what we pay our players and staff but £500 per week or £2000 month seems not a decent guess at what our average maybe. If the cap is confirmed to get the full government percentage and get to the maximum of percentage of wages means you need to earn no more than about £1200 per month to start with. However in general for employess this scheme in theory means they get most of their pay for less hours worked assuming the business they are employed by can still operate. The key problem for thistle and every football club is they play games they need still need to pay 66% of wages on an income that is nowhere near that. Furlough allowed the club to mothball as the wages would in part be paid by the government rather than the club. If you have little income but most of the costs how do you survive without shedding the cost?

The chancellor's annoucement doesn't sound like its going to help football clubs much. To get any assistance means the employees need to work and probably therefore have to play football games without crowds. I don't see how football clubs can operate if they have 2/3's of the cost but only a fraction of the income. Can't see how any team can afford to play or retain its staff. Suspending the league is no longer enough to make this work. I suspect we are looking at clubs going into adminstration so they can end player contracts and then mothball until crowds can come back. Same problem exists for restaurants and bars and any other business that can't open or can only do restricted trade. To get help you have to open and take on a lot of the cost but with a fraction of the income.

The fundamental problem is the UK Government is a mess. They can't afford furlough because Brexit is already going to knacker the economy in the early part of next year. So they tried to get everyone back to work and hope covid would go away over the summer by itself and there would be no second wave. If you remember back at the start of the outbreak in February there was an attempt by Bojo and his pals to push a herd immunity approach. That was again an attempt to run away from the hard work of actually dealing with the problem because they don't have the funds to do this properly without delaying Brexit. Its not just SG that are asking for furlough to be extended. The Welsh and Northern Ireland Government have been asking for it for some time. I think Whitty and Valances presentation were an attempt to force Boris to extend furlough and implement more serious measures in England. However in the current constitutional arrangement if Boris says no and chooses to ignore his own scientific advisors then Scotland ,Wales and Northern Ireland get dragged of the same cliff edge. Everyone has asked why Nicola Strurgeon made the changes in Scotland and what her scientific advice was that said this was the right approach. However no-one has questioned why Boris chose to go for a diluted set of measures? What scientific advise or data does he have that says he doesn't need to implement more controls? Does he have any scientific advise to back up his approach or does whatever Dominic Cummings say matter more than public health professionals? Surely a PM ignoring scientific advise is more of a worry than a first minister taking a cautious view of what her scientific advisors are telling her? For example what scientific advice do you think backs up the following approach? https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/westminster-news/chauffeur-driven-cars-exempt-from-covid19-rules-93846.

When I see Nisbet now the thing that strikes me is how much weight he has lost and healthier he looks compared to his time with us. He's clearly got his head down and worked on his fitness and you can see he is a lot sharper for it. Always looked like he was towing a caravan when he played with us.

Anyone remember Brian Gallacher? One of Lambie's first signings who came from St Mirren who where then in the premier league. I thought we had signed a proper striker as my memory of him at that point was him scoring a hat trick in a european game. Ending up scoring 2 goals in 40 games and the number of chances he missed were extraordinary. Was there not a story about the team getting T-shirts that said I was there when Gal scored? Also Andy Gibson who was another Lambie signing from Aberdeen. Ending up scoring 2 goals in 44 appearances. Was there not a rumour Lambie thought he was signing someone else and when Gibson turned up he realised he had signed the wrong guy?

What Scotland is trying to do is keep education and NHS services running as near normal as possible over the period between Now and March. It doesn't get much attention in the media but the mix in rise of covid and the approaching flu season is whats really scaring the Scottish Government and the UK government medical advisors. So the moves to implement restrictions are solely about restricting the spread of covid through the population its also to stop the spread of flu/colds. Since the schools went back the rise in covid test requests are in part because kids are picking up illnesses and flu's that they weren't exposed to but which give them symptons similar to covid. So actually a symptomatic person getting a negative test actually indicates a cold or flu. Banning households meeting starts to make sense if you think about how the kids get a cold/flu and bring it back home rather tha only thinking about covid. If the furlough scheme was extended I would have expected the Scottish Government to close restaurants and bars as they can see that would like to stop any mixing of the population outside of schools and essential services so they can keep them running over the winter. The fact that we can't make public health decisions that could save lifes because we don't have the power to make a financial decision is bizarre. You can expect to see quite a visible and aggressive flu vacination programme appearing shortly. This is again to maximise available beds in acute settings. The health service could probably cope with one or other on its own but both together could easily get overwhelmed. As far as I understand it is entirely possible to have both covid and flu at the same time or back to back and I can't imagine the odds of survival are high so its possible that the second wave coming near flu season will be more deadly than the first. The fact that postive tests are picking up but hospital admissions and deaths are not is more to do with the age of the people being infected. At this moment its mainly younger people (i.e. school kids, teachers, essential workers) shortly these people will infect the older generation unless people stop mixing and that is when Hospital admissions and Deaths will start to climb. Quite how bad it will be is impossible to know as the wave early this year did not have the same potential mix of seasonal flu mixed with it and you would hope a few lessons have been learnt so infection rates and death rates from the first wave should not be used as an estimate for the next wave. Regarding Mental Health. Lockdown was and is terrible for those that have poor mental health and hard enough for those that have good mental health. One of the main contributors to that scenario was also being couped up with the kids and not being able to keep them occupied. So to a certain degree trying to keep the schools open is also an effort to minise the damage to mental health. I suspect that they will also try to keep football games on tv but behind closed doors as they have recognised that watching football helps with Mental Health. I suspect the same will be true for other sports and in general the Scottish Government will be keen people still play sport. How clubs survive on tha income is unknown and if the furlough scheme comes back I can see alll leagues bar the premier league being postponed as clubs furlough to reduce costs.

Spot on. The UK government messaging on things like eat to help out and get back to the office has created an impression that the worst was over, that life and the economy should get back to normal as quickly as possible. Its completely at odds with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Governments messages of work from home were possible and overall aim of supressing the virus.

Test and trace is different from if you choose to follow the advice to isolate after you have been traced. You are absolutely correct to say that for some people thats a choice between earning enough to put food on the table or not and the gaps in the current furlough scheme need to be addressed to support people who need to Isolate. Interesting to see Wales announced tonight a lump sum payment of £500 for low paid persons who are asked to isolate. It would be good if the Scottish Government did the same but its not enough as some people may have to isolate for several weeks particularly if other members of your household get it. The only sustainable way to support hospitality, toursim etc is extending furlough. The furlough scheme is due to run out at end of October and only the UK Government have the financial levers to extend it. In my opinion Boris has one job today, that was to annouce an extension to furlough whilst we have to continue to operate a mass test, trace and isolate approach. However there are rumours that the UK Government is not keen to do this for two reasons. First of all they can't afford it, second they are now of the opinon that some industries will not return post furlough due to the combined effect of covid-19 and Brexit (i.e. car industry, lots of airlines, some airports, big chunk of pubs, restaurants etc) so they don't want to pay wages for jobs they believe to be lost causes. A major part of Boris's speech tonight was you need to obey the rules or else this gets worse. Ignoring the hypocrisy of who probably wrote that speech I think he is also preparing the ground to push a line that is along the lines of 'we can't extend furlough and the reason you're now out of a job is because you didn't follow our covid instructions'

I don't see Williamson as a first choice. I suspect if Penrice and Foster stay fit he will be next to go. Arguably Gordon may also find he is not a starter so he could well be another to leave in search of a starting slot Also does Gordon count as a Caldwell dud or an Archie dud if he doesn't improve? Archie signed him on loan but I believe Caldwell signed him permanently