Best Of

None of main childhood vaccine uptake targets reached in England - as MMR uptake hits 15-year low
The uptake target for all childhood vaccines is 95% - but one of the main pre-school boosters has been administered to just over 80% of five-year-olds.
https://news.sky.com/story/none-of-main-childhood-vaccine-uptake-targets-reached-in-england-as-mmr-uptake-hits-15-year-low-13419867

I guess this means no sneering at America.

It would be interesting to know which areas of the country are most responsible for the drop in vaccination, assuming it isn't uniform.

Based on the anecdotes of my father’s ex-colleagues there’s a London factor and a white working class factor across the UK.

Antivax sentiment has increased since the pandemic, there’s a lot of misinformation out there, it’s much worse than the Andrew Wakefield bullshit.

Doctors are getting regularly abused when they suggest to some parents that their kids need their vaccines.

London factor?

A mixture of some recent arrivals and some very middle class people who won’t allow poisons to be injected into them or their kids, the sort that believe in homeopathy.

I knew a man very well who died of Covid, because of his refusal to be "injected with poisons". He was a law graduate, from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and I found it hard to fathom such stupidity.

I had a friend, fairly intelligent, had a wonderful wife and three kids, was convinced Covid was a hoax and the vaccine was going to control/kill us all.

Got into a row with his friends and family, some of whom had friends/family who died from Covid.

Told his wife he would divorce her and would never see his kids if they got vaccinated.

Well he’s divorced now, hasn’t seen his kids in four years, I’d like to blame social media, but it wasn’t that, he was just convinced by his own arguments.

He went from earning a six figure salary, to being unemployed and living in a small one bedroom flat.

From what I hear he was sacked from his job for being abusive to the vaccinated.

I thought you said he was fairly intelligent.

Intelligence and self radicalising into weird conspiracy theories can go together.

Knew a chap who had a PhD in Art History. Urbane, polite. Went full MAGA + QANON

I have a friend who did a Masters in Egyptology. But she couldn't find work. So now she's studying for a PhD to teach others.
I'm beginning to suspect the entire subject is an elaborate pyramid scheme.

Judge Connolly, the first appointment of PM Farage to his new 'Peoples Supreme Court' after his general election wing of 2029.

You heard it here first!

She’d be the worse judge since Roland Freisler.

The disturbing thing about Freisler - and other Nazi jurists - is that they were all highly qualified. He had a doctorate in law, from a good university. Which in turn, made it very easy for many of them to move seamlessly back into civilian life at the war's end.

Remember that bit in Conspiracy, when Klopfer asks how many lawyers are present, and more than half raise their hands.

About 20 years ago I read an interview with a documentary maker and he was planning on doing a dramatisation of the People’s Court after the July 20th plot but decided not to because when they read the transcripts they thought the audience would assume scenes like this were an exaggeration.

At one point, Freisler yelled at Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, who was trying to hold up his trousers after being purposely given old, oversized and beltless clothing: "You dirty old man, why do you keep fiddling with your trousers?"

You get the dissonance nicely shown in some of the Philip Kerr cycle of novels about Bernie Gunther - especially during Gunther's service on the Eastern Front. The contrast with the respect for the law and what was happening ...

As a young man, one quote that had a profound impact on me and made me a Conservative and makes me recoil from the modern day Tory party is this one, Mrs Thatcher would be disgusted at the modern day Tory party.

‘The legal system we have and the rule of law are far more responsible for our traditional liberties than any system of one man one vote. Any country or government which wants to proceed towards tyranny starts to undermine legal rights and undermine the law.’

The Atlantic reports Trump is ‘disappointed’ with Zelensky & Europe, calling their demands unrealistic. He just wants the war over ‘no matter how’, even if it means Ukraine losing land. Now he pushes for a Putin-Zelensky summit only if he’s at the table.
To me, Trump is openly aligning with Putin, eroding any trust in the US government.
https://x.com/olddog100ua/status/1961295032167629191

A Ukraine peace deal was too hard, he got bored and has moved onto other topics.

It's shameful he is so neutral on this while civilians are targeted by Russia in Kyiv.

Who the fuck do you think works at that refinery in Saratov that Ukraine droned last week? Spetsnaz?

There is a difference between hitting workers at a plant that is intimately connected with Russia's war economy, and hitting tower blocks where people are sleeping.

The Atlantic reports Trump is ‘disappointed’ with Zelensky & Europe, calling their demands unrealistic. He just wants the war over ‘no matter how’, even if it means Ukraine losing land. Now he pushes for a Putin-Zelensky summit only if he’s at the table.
To me, Trump is openly aligning with Putin, eroding any trust in the US government.
https://x.com/olddog100ua/status/1961295032167629191

A Ukraine peace deal was too hard, he got bored and has moved onto other topics.

It's shameful he is so neutral on this while civilians are targeted by Russia in Kyiv.

Who the fuck do you think works at that refinery in Saratov that Ukraine droned last week? Spetsnaz?

False equivalence there. Russia has very clearly been a lot more indiscriminate in its targeting of civilians than Ukraine has.

I have to apologise to Luckyguy.
While his suggestions regarding QE were economically eccentric, and essentially ignored the costs of what he was proposing, the recent sharp rise in interest rates has somewhat changed the situation. And while his remedy might well have been as bad as the problem he was seeking to address, he was quite right to identify a large problem which the rest of us really didn't.

In the environment, the BoE continuing its program of steadily unwinding QE (something which theEU and the US aren't doing) effectively means that it takes very large losses on its continuing gilt sales - which also help depress market prices, and create something of a downward spiral.
Also the banks are now making outsize profits (something never intended) by virtue of the scheme.

The IPPR has a report out which makes some much more sensible, and quite simple suggestions to address those two things.

You can download the full report here:

https://www.ippr.org/articles/fixing-the-leak
..after a period of making significant profits on this programme, the Bank of England is now making record losses, which is historically very unusual for central banks. The Treasury is paying for these losses, making the UK an international outlier, and the sums involved are staggering: Bank of England losses will cost the taxpayer £22 billion a year in every year of this parliament.
These losses come from two sources: valuation losses from selling government bonds below purchase value; and interest rate losses.
In this report we recommend a two-pronged approach to address this issue.
First, to recoup interest rate losses for the taxpayer currently occurring at the Bank of England, the government should implement a ‘QE reserves income levy’ on commercial banks.
Second, the government should urge the Bank of England to review and better manage the fiscal implications of its policies, in particular slowing the pace of the unwinding of quantitative easing – so-called quantitative tightening – and any future quantitative easing.

Seems like a no brainer for a Chancellor desperate for cash.
With very little downside.