What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
The "my wife committed suicide" angle was appalling. Yes its a persona tragedy. But it is no defence against corruption. Or was he suggesting that he was so grief-stricken by her suicide that he accidentally made half a mil from lobbying? If so why is he saying he would do it all again?
In ordinary times I would ask how stupid the Tory party think people are. Sadly we know that they know quite a lot of people are pretty stupid...
It really isn't appalling. AIUI, the family believes the stress of the investigation - and her fears she would lose positions she loves, including one at the ?jockey club?, led her to do it. So it is perfectly acceptable to mention it.
It's amazing how quickly all the pleas for a kinder, more compassionate kind of politics after Amess's murder have been forgotten. His wife took her own life: he's perfectly right to mention it.
Had he not behaved abysmally, his wife would not have been under the fear of losing position.
Hold on. "Behaved abysmally" ? Get a grip. He did wrong. He broke the rules over lobbying. He probably should not be an MP (and will not be now). But no-one was hurt, no-one was threatened. Compare and contrast with (say) Webbe.
His wife committed suicide. It doesn't excuse what he did, but he darned well deserves compassion over it. And he ain't getting much of it on here.
I suggest you read my post on the previous thread at 10:41 am. It is possible to have very great sympathy for him because of his personal loss while criticising his behaviour as an MP.
Personal tragedy does not get you off the hook for your wrongdoings. If it did, our prisons would largely be empty since most of the people who end up in prison have suffered any number of personal tragedies and difficulties before they got there.
I totally agree. However (rightly or wrongly), it's often used in court as mitigation, is it not?
But that wasn't my main point.
No it isn't, and certainly not where backwards in time causation is required to make it work.
One for the lawyers:
IANAL, but isn't mitigation often (but not solely) used at sentencing? In the form of "In consequence she has lost her job and her home, and has therefore already been punished?" In other words, "go easy on her."
I might be wrong ...
That’s correct.
And given the actual nature and seriousness of the crime, alongside the defendants inability to see what crime had been committed it's possible that the actual sentence should have been 90 days rather than 30 days and that the suicide had mitigated the final sentence.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
Why the f*** did they not look at the allegations and defence before starting to defend him.
The paperwork was available online and made it 100% clear why this was the wrong case to do anything with.
Heck I said as much yesterday, no character witness can explain multiple letters (so not a single accidental mistake) where you misrepresent the reason you are writing the letter and fail to mention you are being paid to do so.
Some of them fell for the bullshit perpetuated on here about the Commissioner and the process.
Something which was rebutted extensively.
I though the Standards Committee dealt with this very well. They restrained themselves to commenting that they had found the personal allegations against the Commissioner unsubstantiated.
I’ve no idea who might be the MPs referred to in Paterson’s resignation letter who ‘mocked’ his dead wife, despite following the story quite closely.
The video/audio of it is available online from the debate yesterday. When JRM mentioned that the death of his wife there was a chorus of very nasty mocking "ahhhs" coming from the Opposition benches.
That really was unpleasant. There has always been Punch & Judy politics in Westminster but to mock someone's death like that is just ugly. I have no idea who did it but if I was to guess it would be the usual suspects who backed Corbyn.
Wasn't JRM trying to use the suicide as a mitigating factor rather than a statement of absolute fact. Which was rather rich, given that the suicide was a direct result of Owen being investigated..
Which is a point that can legitimately be made, without being nasty and mocking the death.
That did not happen, IMO.
As you know, I’ve refrained from making much comment over this, and have hesitated to judge Paterson himself on this particular aspect.
But I remember gasping with anger myself when Johnson used it as part of his argument in the Commons. The manner in which he did was utterly disingenuous to anyone who has actually read the Standards Committee report.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
The "my wife committed suicide" angle was appalling. Yes its a persona tragedy. But it is no defence against corruption. Or was he suggesting that he was so grief-stricken by her suicide that he accidentally made half a mil from lobbying? If so why is he saying he would do it all again?
In ordinary times I would ask how stupid the Tory party think people are. Sadly we know that they know quite a lot of people are pretty stupid...
It really isn't appalling. AIUI, the family believes the stress of the investigation - and her fears she would lose positions she loves, including one at the ?jockey club?, led her to do it. So it is perfectly acceptable to mention it.
It's amazing how quickly all the pleas for a kinder, more compassionate kind of politics after Amess's murder have been forgotten. His wife took her own life: he's perfectly right to mention it.
Had he not behaved abysmally, his wife would not have been under the fear of losing position.
Hold on. "Behaved abysmally" ? Get a grip. He did wrong. He broke the rules over lobbying. He probably should not be an MP (and will not be now). But no-one was hurt, no-one was threatened. Compare and contrast with (say) Webbe.
His wife committed suicide. It doesn't excuse what he did, but he darned well deserves compassion over it. And he ain't getting much of it on here.
I suggest you read my post on the previous thread at 10:41 am. It is possible to have very great sympathy for him because of his personal loss while criticising his behaviour as an MP.
Personal tragedy does not get you off the hook for your wrongdoings. If it did, our prisons would largely be empty since most of the people who end up in prison have suffered any number of personal tragedies and difficulties before they got there.
I totally agree. However (rightly or wrongly), it's often used in court as mitigation, is it not?
But that wasn't my main point.
I thought Paterson's work after his wife's death on suicide was admirable. See the interview on Woman's Hour I linked to earlier. He hoped that raising awareness would ensure that some good would come out of it.
(As you may know my family suffered a suicide last year so I know a very little of what he must have gone through. The interview he gave was very moving.)
His behaviour in recent days has not been admirable at all. He has been stupid. If he'd accepted the sanction, he'd still be an MP. As it is he has lost his job, made himself look ridiculous and venal and undone the good he tried to achieve with his work on suicide awareness and prevention.
I think it is best he is not an MP. But on a human level I imagine he is under a lot of stress right now - not least because he will also feel betrayed by the PM. I hope for his sake that his family and true friends rally round him now. He is also a father and grandfather.
I hope his friends are looking after him. Is it ungallant to note that those of his friends who tried to get him off have made his downfall even worse?
It's not ungallant. Sometimes our friends can help us see our own best interests better than we can.
He may feel betrayed and angry, but ultimately there is a connection between all his professional woes, and it's himself.
I'm reminded of the story that it was Denis who persuaded Maggie that it was time to go on that fateful day in 1990.
Whenever the time comes, will Carrie be able to do the same? Will Boris listen?
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
The "my wife committed suicide" angle was appalling. Yes its a persona tragedy. But it is no defence against corruption. Or was he suggesting that he was so grief-stricken by her suicide that he accidentally made half a mil from lobbying? If so why is he saying he would do it all again?
In ordinary times I would ask how stupid the Tory party think people are. Sadly we know that they know quite a lot of people are pretty stupid...
It really isn't appalling. AIUI, the family believes the stress of the investigation - and her fears she would lose positions she loves, including one at the ?jockey club?, led her to do it. So it is perfectly acceptable to mention it.
It's amazing how quickly all the pleas for a kinder, more compassionate kind of politics after Amess's murder have been forgotten. His wife took her own life: he's perfectly right to mention it.
Had he not behaved abysmally, his wife would not have been under the fear of losing position.
Hold on. "Behaved abysmally" ? Get a grip. He did wrong. He broke the rules over lobbying. He probably should not be an MP (and will not be now). But no-one was hurt, no-one was threatened. Compare and contrast with (say) Webbe.
His wife committed suicide. It doesn't excuse what he did, but he darned well deserves compassion over it. And he ain't getting much of it on here.
I suggest you read my post on the previous thread at 10:41 am. It is possible to have very great sympathy for him because of his personal loss while criticising his behaviour as an MP.
Personal tragedy does not get you off the hook for your wrongdoings. If it did, our prisons would largely be empty since most of the people who end up in prison have suffered any number of personal tragedies and difficulties before they got there.
I totally agree. However (rightly or wrongly), it's often used in court as mitigation, is it not?
But that wasn't my main point.
I thought Paterson's work after his wife's death on suicide was admirable. See the interview on Woman's Hour I linked to earlier. He hoped that raising awareness would ensure that some good would come out of it.
(As you may know my family suffered a suicide last year so I know a very little of what he must have gone through. The interview he gave was very moving.)
His behaviour in recent days has not been admirable at all. He has been stupid. If he'd accepted the sanction, he'd still be an MP. As it is he has lost his job, made himself look ridiculous and venal and undone the good he tried to achieve with his work on suicide awareness and prevention.
I think it is best he is not an MP. But on a human level I imagine he is under a lot of stress right now - not least because he will also feel betrayed by the PM. I hope for his sake that his family and true friends rally round him now. He is also a father and grandfather.
I hope his friends are looking after him. Is it ungallant to note that those of his friends who tried to get him off have made his downfall even worse?
Not ungallant at all. I query whether they are true friends. He was being used - and was either too arrogant or stupid to realise this.
Still he is now off the stage so leave him be. It is the behaviour of the PM and the rest of the party which matters now.
A police officer who claimed he was too injured to walk has been jailed for defrauding his force out of £150,000, after an app on his mobile phone showed he had been taking 10,000 steps a day.
PC Matthew Littlefair, 36, claimed full pay and other benefits for two years while “putting on an act” that he was so badly hurt he “couldn’t even lift a kettle” after a minor car crash.
A covert surveillance operation was launched after colleagues became suspicious and he was spotted playing football with his children, walking his dog, going jogging and riding bicycles.
When investigators examined his phone they found he had repeatedly been recorded taking 10,000 steps a day — the equivalent of five miles — while claiming he was unable to work.
A judge condemned Littlefair for his “arrogance” and said his crime would damage public confidence in the police.
Jailing Littlefair for two years and three months, Judge Robert Pawson said the case had come “during one of the worst years in recent policing history”, referring to the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by the Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens
Whilst at Uni (gulp!) nearly 30 years ago, I had a health issue that meant I found it hard to walk at times. I was in a lot of pain. This got me a room in Halls for my second year, and in the Halls nearest uni.
Yet occasionally during that second year, I would walk seven or so miles along the Regents Canal to Paddington, and get the tube back. People would ask how I could do that if the pain was so bad. The answer was simple; the pain often reduced, and I liked to fight it. Because it was nerve damage, walking itself didn't seem to make the pain worse, and walking helped my mood immeasurably.
There was no way I could have done anything that involved me regularly and reliably walking, because I could never know when the pain would strike. That meant I could have had no job that relied on my walking alot - even if I occasionally could.
Though this isn't the case here ("lift a kettle"), I'm always a little concerned when people accuse others of not being disabled. Often people are lying, but sometimes pain can be intermittent, and people can be fighting it. But the pain can still be something that is debilitating.
Pain is a weird thing.
I’ve dealt with a few capability dismissal cases with very similar facts to that - often involving employers getting surveillance done at great expense
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
"Well this has certainly worked out well, three line whip to resignation in less than 24 hours. Everyone involved in this fiasco looks a complete clown."
"Who exactly thought yesterday's ploy was a good idea?"
"Paul Goodman's comment about the party 'pinning itself down by hostile fire in a cul-de-sac of its own creation' turned out to be brutally accurate. As was former chief whip Mark Harper's comment along the lines of this being one of the most 'unedifying episodes I have ever seen in 16 years as an MP'. Well, good to know it was all worth it. *sigh*"
"Just when you think Johnson has finally hit the bottom of barrel...It turns out he doesn't give a toss about Paterson anyway"
"Fancy our PM making a mistake he's normally so organised!"
"As many of the more sober minded of us warned, if you elect a clown expect a circus. This has been a disgraceful episode, triggered purely by friends of Paterson whispering in the clown's ear. Johnson remains an utterly unserious man who has just handed much needed ammunition to our opponents."
"That's a lot of political credibility and capital wasted in making a massive u-turn only hours after a decidedly foolish three-line whip. This government is setting new lows in terms of sheer incompetence and chicanery. Whoever calculated that Leadsom's proposed new committee under Whittingdale would gain traction should probably have a good look at themselves in the mirror."
"If this were the first screeching u-turn we had seen from this Government we could credit them for having the wisdom to admit when they were wrong. But we have seen many such u-turns, from Covid to school meals, over the past 18 months. The cumulative effect is that they make the Government appear dreadfully weak, and to lack the courage of its convictions at the first sign of criticism. Can you imagine Mrs Thatcher operating like this?"
I'm beginning to wonder if Johnson will lose the South but keep the Midlands and Red Wall, as traditional Tories sit on their hands on mass in 2023/4.
I think it's entirely possible that the Conservative vote will hold up very well in the North and the Midlands (and especially in smaller towns), while dropping off in the suburbs and in the South.
Fortunately for Mr Johnson, majorities in the South are typically ample, and there's often no clear challenger.
It leads me to expect that the Conservatives will gain 10 seats from boundary changes, and drop 20 seats (or maybe a little more), but maintain a fairly healthy majority.
Of course, events may well intervene to make this forecast look foolish.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
Its not that money is more important than life, it is that life is more important than death. Is it worth 67 million people not living their life to the full in order to prevent 100 deaths per day? Especially if those 100 deaths are either people who refused the vaccine, or are so vulnerable that any illness could finish them off? For me, absolutely not.
Well, some of us.
99.9999% of us.
Everyone dies eventually.
Why bother with healthcare at all? It's very expensive, and we all die eventually.
Healthcare is about treating the sick, not restricting the healthy.
Taxation is a form of restriction.
And I'm against all unnecessary taxation, so not sure what point you're trying to make.
The point I'm making is that the ultimate conclusion of your "everyone dies eventually" argument is that any taxation that goes towards funding healthcare is unnecessary. It's therefore a stupid argument.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Well, as a proud Yoon I will have take your word that you have the correct definition for "the relevant parts of Scotland"
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
Not that idea again about the covid only killing off the ternimally ill.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Well, as a proud Yoon I will have take your word that you have the correct definition for "the relevant parts of Scotland"
You're living there, actually. In the Doric lands.
Ok, I'm now sure the Paterson story will be a story widely shared and discussed by the hoi polloi.
From another PB.
Had you asked Popbitch to select an MP to head up a new committee to investigate and uphold parliamentary standards, then we probably would have settled on John Whittingdale: the former Culture Secretary who once got caught taking a dominatrix on a freebie trip to the MTV Awards in Amsterdam, which he then failed to declare.
Who better to examine the details of MPs' contentious lobbying efforts than the man who also failed to declare the free hospitality he accepted from a London lapdancing club at the same time he was chairing an inquiry into the licensing process for London lapdancing clubs?
He'd have been the Popbitch pick for sure – and it seems the only difference between us and Her Majesty's Government is that, critically, we'd have been joking...
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
Its not that money is more important than life, it is that life is more important than death. Is it worth 67 million people not living their life to the full in order to prevent 100 deaths per day? Especially if those 100 deaths are either people who refused the vaccine, or are so vulnerable that any illness could finish them off? For me, absolutely not.
Well, some of us.
99.9999% of us.
Everyone dies eventually.
Why bother with healthcare at all? It's very expensive, and we all die eventually.
Healthcare is about treating the sick, not restricting the healthy.
Taxation is a form of restriction.
And I'm against all unnecessary taxation, so not sure what point you're trying to make.
The point I'm making is that the ultimate conclusion of your "everyone dies eventually" argument is that any taxation that goes towards funding healthcare is unnecessary. It's therefore a stupid argument.
No its not. Everyone does die, if you were going to have enough taxation to try to prevent anyone ever from dying then yes I would say that's completely wrong and I wouldn't be prepared to pay that level of taxation. Plus its not possible.
Death is a fact of life, we have to live with it. Don't try and emotionally blackmail people into accepting restrictions because of deaths that simply are going to happen.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
Why the f*** did they not look at the allegations and defence before starting to defend him.
The paperwork was available online and made it 100% clear why this was the wrong case to do anything with.
Heck I said as much yesterday, no character witness can explain multiple letters (so not a single accidental mistake) where you misrepresent the reason you are writing the letter and fail to mention you are being paid to do so.
Some of them fell for the bullshit perpetuated on here about the Commissioner and the process.
Something which was rebutted extensively.
I though the Standards Committee dealt with this very well. They restrained themselves to commenting that they had found the personal allegations against the Commissioner unsubstantiated.
I’ve no idea who might be the MPs referred to in Paterson’s resignation letter who ‘mocked’ his dead wife, despite following the story quite closely.
The video/audio of it is available online from the debate yesterday. When JRM mentioned that the death of his wife there was a chorus of very nasty mocking "ahhhs" coming from the Opposition benches.
That really was unpleasant. There has always been Punch & Judy politics in Westminster but to mock someone's death like that is just ugly. I have no idea who did it but if I was to guess it would be the usual suspects who backed Corbyn.
Wasn't JRM trying to use the suicide as a mitigating factor rather than a statement of absolute fact. Which was rather rich, given that the suicide was a direct result of Owen being investigated..
Which is a point that can legitimately be made, without being nasty and mocking the death.
That did not happen, IMO.
As you know, I’ve refrained from making much comment over this, and have hesitated to judge Paterson himself on this particular aspect.
But I remember gasping with anger myself when Johnson used it as part of his argument in the Commons. The manner in which he did was utterly disingenuous to anyone who has actually read the Standards Committee report.
A gasp is one thing, mocking "ahhs" are inexcusable. Especially when they're done not once, but twice on the same day.
If you have nothing nice to say when someone's death is mentioned then you don't say anything at all. Sit in silence at that point then speak when its your turn and make your point. Clearly sarcastic mocking "ahhs" is offensive and belittling her death.
Nope it's just a reaction to the complete and utter abuse of her suicide for political gain.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
Not that idea again about the covid only killing off the ternimally ill.
The terminally ill and the unvaccinated.
How many non-terminally ill vaccinated people are dying on a daily basis?
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
We live with death happening on a daily basis kinabalu. On a daily basis 99.999% of people are not dying and 99.9999% of people are not dying from Covid (0.0009% are dying from other causes).
If you think you can eliminate death then that's just silly.
We can't eliminate death, but most of us would prefer to delay it for as long as reasonably possible.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
Why the f*** did they not look at the allegations and defence before starting to defend him.
The paperwork was available online and made it 100% clear why this was the wrong case to do anything with.
Heck I said as much yesterday, no character witness can explain multiple letters (so not a single accidental mistake) where you misrepresent the reason you are writing the letter and fail to mention you are being paid to do so.
Some of them fell for the bullshit perpetuated on here about the Commissioner and the process.
Something which was rebutted extensively.
I though the Standards Committee dealt with this very well. They restrained themselves to commenting that they had found the personal allegations against the Commissioner unsubstantiated.
I’ve no idea who might be the MPs referred to in Paterson’s resignation letter who ‘mocked’ his dead wife, despite following the story quite closely.
The video/audio of it is available online from the debate yesterday. When JRM mentioned that the death of his wife there was a chorus of very nasty mocking "ahhhs" coming from the Opposition benches.
That really was unpleasant. There has always been Punch & Judy politics in Westminster but to mock someone's death like that is just ugly. I have no idea who did it but if I was to guess it would be the usual suspects who backed Corbyn.
Wasn't JRM trying to use the suicide as a mitigating factor rather than a statement of absolute fact. Which was rather rich, given that the suicide was a direct result of Owen being investigated..
Which is a point that can legitimately be made, without being nasty and mocking the death.
That did not happen, IMO.
As you know, I’ve refrained from making much comment over this, and have hesitated to judge Paterson himself on this particular aspect.
But I remember gasping with anger myself when Johnson used it as part of his argument in the Commons. The manner in which he did was utterly disingenuous to anyone who has actually read the Standards Committee report.
A gasp is one thing, mocking "ahhs" are inexcusable. Especially when they're done not once, but twice on the same day.
If you have nothing nice to say when someone's death is mentioned then you don't say anything at all. Sit in silence at that point then speak when its your turn and make your point. Clearly sarcastic mocking "ahhs" is offensive and belittling her death.
Nope it's just a reaction to the complete and utter abuse of her suicide for political gain.
The comment about Patterson and Webbe being joined souls gather more evidence Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring, sentencing, said: "I have no doubt that, when not overtaken by jealousy and rage, you are a hard-working, upstanding member of Parliament and of society.
"[But] the level of harassment and the threats you made cannot be excused."
He added he found it "odd and concerning" that the probation service report said Webbe felt like a victim herself.
The district judge said he counted four occasions when Webbe referred to herself as "the victim" during her testimony from the witness box.
Lol @ Fabricant going on the radio to defend Paterson and everything the Tories did yesterday, even now. What a chump!
Is he a chump or do you stop to think for one second that he actually genuinely thinks that Paterson was in the right and an injustice has been done?
He's a thick as a brick narcissist, is Fabbers.
Yesterday, your line would have sort of worked - much though I think the defence of Paterson yesterday was utterly unprincipled excusing of blatant sleaze to defend a sleazy PM and a pal who'd been caught red-handed with fingers in the cookie jar, maybe a few Tory MPs were dumb enough to have genuinely bought into it all.
But what Fabbers is doing now is simply going on the airwaves because he likes Fabbers being on the airwaves. It's harming his party defending an indefensible position, and does less than nothing for Paterson who has resigned as an MP and will now simply want this to blow over and be forgotten. Nobody but Fabbers benefits at this stage.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
We live with death happening on a daily basis kinabalu. On a daily basis 99.999% of people are not dying and 99.9999% of people are not dying from Covid (0.0009% are dying from other causes).
If you think you can eliminate death then that's just silly.
We can't eliminate death, but most of us would prefer to delay it for as long as reasonably possible.
Getting vaccinated is the way to do that.
Lockdown restrictions is trying to do delay it for what is unreasonably possible.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
We live with death happening on a daily basis kinabalu. On a daily basis 99.999% of people are not dying and 99.9999% of people are not dying from Covid (0.0009% are dying from other causes).
If you think you can eliminate death then that's just silly.
We can't eliminate death, but most of us would prefer to delay it for as long as reasonably possible.
On PT's [edit] logic we should never have banned drink driving and introduced seat belts.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
Not that idea again about the covid only killing off the ternimally ill.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Well, as a proud Yoon I will have take your word that you have the correct definition for "the relevant parts of Scotland"
You're living there, actually. In the Doric lands.
Ah - so i'm right and you are wrong
Loon means younger person in Doric - nothing more nothing less
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
In the UK, we've seen about 13% more deaths than normal since the beginning of the pandemic. But most of that happened last year or at the very beginning of this. I think we're slightly above normal levels right now (1-3%), but nothing serious.
(As aside, the numbers for South America are horrifying - whole hosts of countries that have seen 50+% more deaths, and some with more than twice the normal level. For the best part of two years.)
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
Why the f*** did they not look at the allegations and defence before starting to defend him.
The paperwork was available online and made it 100% clear why this was the wrong case to do anything with.
Heck I said as much yesterday, no character witness can explain multiple letters (so not a single accidental mistake) where you misrepresent the reason you are writing the letter and fail to mention you are being paid to do so.
Some of them fell for the bullshit perpetuated on here about the Commissioner and the process.
Something which was rebutted extensively.
I though the Standards Committee dealt with this very well. They restrained themselves to commenting that they had found the personal allegations against the Commissioner unsubstantiated.
I’ve no idea who might be the MPs referred to in Paterson’s resignation letter who ‘mocked’ his dead wife, despite following the story quite closely.
I think it was actually a response to Mr Johnson's speech which was itself - not the suicide - seen as inappropriate. The Graun feed discusses this issue. See its entry for 1506 today:
"Oppositon MPs may be surprised by the claim in Owen Paterson’s statement that some of them mocked his wife’s death by suicide last year. (See 2.45pm.) He may have been referring to a moment during PMQs yesterday. In his sketch (paywall) for The Times (paywall), Quentin Letts said: “At PMQs earlier, Boris Johnson had mentioned Rose Paterson’s suicide. Up went several aw-diddums “ahhs” from the Labour side.” My colleague John Crace, the Guardian’s sketchwriter, was also in the gallery and he tells me he did not see anything that could be described as MPs mocking Rose’s death. My impression was that when Johnson mentioned Rose’s suicide, that did prompt a feint reaction from some MPs, but that was more because they felt Johnson was using Rose’s death as cover because he was finding it hard to justify the vote exempting Paterson from the standards committee recommendations. But I was listening to the debate on TV, not watching from the gallery, so I may have missed aspects of the reaction."
That makes sense. I heard that part of the debate, and the Guardian account seems far more accurate than that of Letts.
I suppose it’s possible he’s genuinely persuaded himself that’s the case, but objectively it seems nonsense.
The Guardian account seems far more accurate than= LOL
Nigel is giving his opinion having heard it. Now no doubt Nigel and the Guardian are capable of bias (particularly the Guardian), but don't you think it is possible that they have done a reasonable job and Nigel has spotted that is the case. Did you listen to the debate and read the Guardian article to know that Nigel is wrong?
Nope. Its just a huge stretch to think the Guardian would give an honest account of anything to do with the Tories. It never has done yet....
This whole business has been seriously mismanaged by the Govt, that doesn't mean one should use hyperbole with respect to the Guardian and its journalistic inegrity.
Its like saying you can trust the Daily Mail equally a huge LOL.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
We live with death happening on a daily basis kinabalu. On a daily basis 99.999% of people are not dying and 99.9999% of people are not dying from Covid (0.0009% are dying from other causes).
If you think you can eliminate death then that's just silly.
We can't eliminate death, but most of us would prefer to delay it for as long as reasonably possible.
On PT's [edit] logic we should never have banned drink driving and introduced seat belts.
No, not drink driving and wearing a seat belt is like getting your vaccine.
Telling people they can't go to mass events etc is like saying you are banning cars altogether.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Well, as a proud Yoon I will have take your word that you have the correct definition for "the relevant parts of Scotland"
You're living there, actually. In the Doric lands.
Ah - so i'm right and you are wrong
Loon means younger person in Doric - nothing more nothing less
Loonie was the word at issue. It means a smaller younger person in Doric. Not a heidbanger or nyaff or bampot.
Up to now, I've been avoiding partisan politics on the Paterson debacle, because I would think the same about him whichever party he was in. However, I've just re-read Starmer's coruscating article yesterday in the light of today's events:
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
Not that idea again about the covid only killing off the ternimally ill.
The way Philip sees it, we're all terminally ill.
Life is a sexually transmitted and terminal condition.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Well, as a proud Yoon I will have take your word that you have the correct definition for "the relevant parts of Scotland"
You're living there, actually. In the Doric lands.
Ah - so i'm right and you are wrong
Loon means younger person in Doric - nothing more nothing less
Younger male
Females get called quine.
Hense the less age derived Lass as a moniker of ChrissyD of this parish.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
Not that idea again about the covid only killing off the ternimally ill.
The terminally ill and the unvaccinated.
How many non-terminally ill vaccinated people are dying on a daily basis?
I can't give you a figure, although I have just got of a call with a young colleague whose not particularly old, reasonably fit, non-terminally ill, double vaccinated grandfather died of it just last week. Anecdata, I know, and I'm not on the "lets all hide in our cellars" end of the spectrum. But I think you're at risk of being flippant about the situation.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Well, as a proud Yoon I will have take your word that you have the correct definition for "the relevant parts of Scotland"
You're living there, actually. In the Doric lands.
Ah - so i'm right and you are wrong
Loon means younger person in Doric - nothing more nothing less
Loonie was the word at issue. It means a smaller younger person in Doric. Not a heidbanger or nyaff or bampot.
I guess I'll just have to accept your definition then and hope you aren't as wrong as you are politically.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
In the UK, we've seen about 13% more deaths than normal since the beginning of the pandemic. But most of that happened last year or at the very beginning of this. I think we're slightly above normal levels right now (1-3%), but nothing serious.
The problem that we now have is that a lot of people are hypersensitised to the subject of Covid deaths, regard any rate of Covid death as unacceptable, and therefore insist that Covid restrictions should go on forever.
@Philip_Thompson is quite right to point out that most Covid deaths are in people who have wilfully chosen not to avail themselves of the protection of vaccines, or in the very old and frail. This will leave some casualties who are in reasonable health but just bloody unlucky, but there are all manner of other causes of death that would be preventable with sufficiently tough restrictions, yet where we choose not to bother. The five people a day who get killed in Britain in a typical year in road traffic accidents would all survive if we abolished motorized transport, for example. It doesn't necessarily follow that such a measure would be either proportionate or desirable.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
Not that idea again about the covid only killing off the ternimally ill.
The way Philip sees it, we're all terminally ill.
Life is a sexually transmitted and terminal condition.
As WC Fields remarked "It's a funny old world, a man's lucky to get out of it alive" and (apocryphally) on his deathbed when seen thumbing through the bible when asked what he was doing "Looking for loopholes".....
The comment about Patterson and Webbe being joined souls gather more evidence Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring, sentencing, said: "I have no doubt that, when not overtaken by jealousy and rage, you are a hard-working, upstanding member of Parliament and of society.
"[But] the level of harassment and the threats you made cannot be excused."
He added he found it "odd and concerning" that the probation service report said Webbe felt like a victim herself.
The district judge said he counted four occasions when Webbe referred to herself as "the victim" during her testimony from the witness box.
Didn't follow the case but I think she kinda has a point, the boyfriend was being a bastard. If Webbe felt like this about the friendship, no matter how irrationally, his honourable courses of action were stop seeing the other woman, or end things with Webbe.
Just to throw this out there - Owen Paterson's resignation as an MP is enabled by the legal fiction of the Chancellor appointing him to be the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
A police officer who claimed he was too injured to walk has been jailed for defrauding his force out of £150,000, after an app on his mobile phone showed he had been taking 10,000 steps a day.
PC Matthew Littlefair, 36, claimed full pay and other benefits for two years while “putting on an act” that he was so badly hurt he “couldn’t even lift a kettle” after a minor car crash.
A covert surveillance operation was launched after colleagues became suspicious and he was spotted playing football with his children, walking his dog, going jogging and riding bicycles.
When investigators examined his phone they found he had repeatedly been recorded taking 10,000 steps a day — the equivalent of five miles — while claiming he was unable to work.
A judge condemned Littlefair for his “arrogance” and said his crime would damage public confidence in the police.
Jailing Littlefair for two years and three months, Judge Robert Pawson said the case had come “during one of the worst years in recent policing history”, referring to the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by the Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens
Whilst at Uni (gulp!) nearly 30 years ago, I had a health issue that meant I found it hard to walk at times. I was in a lot of pain. This got me a room in Halls for my second year, and in the Halls nearest uni.
Yet occasionally during that second year, I would walk seven or so miles along the Regents Canal to Paddington, and get the tube back. People would ask how I could do that if the pain was so bad. The answer was simple; the pain often reduced, and I liked to fight it. Because it was nerve damage, walking itself didn't seem to make the pain worse, and walking helped my mood immeasurably.
There was no way I could have done anything that involved me regularly and reliably walking, because I could never know when the pain would strike. That meant I could have had no job that relied on my walking alot - even if I occasionally could.
Though this isn't the case here ("lift a kettle"), I'm always a little concerned when people accuse others of not being disabled. Often people are lying, but sometimes pain can be intermittent, and people can be fighting it. But the pain can still be something that is debilitating.
Pain is a weird thing.
I’ve dealt with a few capability dismissal cases with very similar facts to that - often involving employers getting surveillance done at great expense
It was a bit upsetting to have people doubt I was in pain, when the alternative was to give in and not do anything - to be an invalid. I chose to fight it - and mostly thanks to a brilliant surgeon, ten years later I walked around Britain.
But I don't know what the answer is: some people will be lying for their own benefit; others will be unaware or incapable of job opportunities they could do; and others will force themselves to do things that are bad for their health. How do you separate the good from the bad? How do you tell how much pain someone is really in?
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
I thought a Loon was a bird...
That too, in North America.
Loons is what Americans call divers (Great Northern, Red Throated and Black Throated are the ones we can get in the UK). Majestic sights too.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Negligible? Can't you read the "deaths" graph through your blue-tinted spectacles?
Germany **** the bed today due to rising deaths, look at the graph, and you are claiming we've beaten Covid.
Germany is likely to have a much more difficult winter than us, with a lower vaccination rate, slow uptake of boosters, and lower levels of natural immunity.
They won't have a difficult winter, they'll end up having a lockdown and then the morons over here will scream and shout that we need one too.
I'm slightly surprised how poorly the US is doing in the booster stakes. It's available to anyone who's more than six months since their second dose - which is a lot of people eligible.
The Europeans should really start encouraging people to get boosters - it's not like they have any shortage of vaccines (almost 200 million doses in reserve). I think they've been lulled into a false sense of security by low current case rates. And if there's one thing we know about Covid, it's that it bites people in the arse who aren't proactive.
Lulled into a false sense of security (as they were last year) by assuming that what is alleged "going wrong" in the UK is a consequence of UK Government incompetence and not just the reality that the UK is further along the curve (eg. because early vaccinations meant waning happened earlier). And some of the EU may actually be more exposed BECAUSE they have been maintaining restrictions whereas the UK has got a lot of it out of the way in the Summer...
The thing is that when lockdown was lifted it was explicitly said that there would be an exit wave of cases and its better to get it done with now in the summer than in the winter.
And some people still view higher cases in unrestricted UK versus restricted Europe as a failure rather than a success. 🤦♂️
The UK is going to have an unrestricted winter with herd immunity from vaccines, boosters and natural immunity. The European nations that foolishly kept restrictions in the summer aren't going to be able to lift them in the winter and may have to ratchet them even further instead.
I think it depends on whether they get themselves into gear with boosters. At the peak of the EU vaccination campaign in May/June, they were managing to get almost 30m doses in arms a week (which is about 10x the current numbers). If they were able to get back to previous peak rates of vaccination, they'd get 50% of adults done in about five weeks.
But that requires them to realise there's an issue. And I don't think they do yet.
I suspect that the booster campaigns will not end up starting until there's a winter wave of cases... which they could probably avoid if they acted now.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
I've just been reading asbout possible unit trusts, and the difference that a percentage point extra in annual charge makes over time. Annd it's not 1%, no sirree. No self-respecting Tory would accept an extra 1% annually on top of 9% without good reason (i.e. additiona yield). As presimably PT is not including yield in the form of babies (unlikely in the main mortality age groiups), then he's happy to see people have a much reduced life expectancy. Exponential growoth works in both directions, after all.
You're wrong, we're not having exponential deaths or a much reduced life expectancy.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
In the UK, we've seen about 13% more deaths than normal since the beginning of the pandemic. But most of that happened last year or at the very beginning of this. I think we're slightly above normal levels right now (1-3%), but nothing serious.
(As aside, the numbers for South America are horrifying - whole hosts of countries that have seen 50+% more deaths, and some with more than twice the normal level. For the best part of two years.)
We would expect to be below, given the elderly and vulnerable that died early, during the first wave.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
The comment about Patterson and Webbe being joined souls gather more evidence Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring, sentencing, said: "I have no doubt that, when not overtaken by jealousy and rage, you are a hard-working, upstanding member of Parliament and of society.
"[But] the level of harassment and the threats you made cannot be excused."
He added he found it "odd and concerning" that the probation service report said Webbe felt like a victim herself.
The district judge said he counted four occasions when Webbe referred to herself as "the victim" during her testimony from the witness box.
Didn't follow the case but I think she kinda has a point, the boyfriend was being a bastard. If Webbe felt like this about the friendship, no matter how irrationally, his honourable courses of action were stop seeing the other woman, or end things with Webbe.
I don't think it is unreasonable to struggle to accept her comments about victimhood whilst she still remains blind to the impact of her actions on someone else.
I'm eagerly awaiting to see how context would help justify some of the things she is quoted as saying in her harrassing behaviour.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Re: Covid - one point perhaps hopefully made in not quite such an emotive/confrontational way is that it may well be that "endemic" Covid (absent any serious level of permanent restrictions) will have a level of many 10s of thousands of cases a day (based on estimates for other coronaviruses). And until we dial back on testing and/or unless we alter the way that Covid deaths are recorded to more accurately record only those where Covid is the cause, as opposed to just being present, this could perhaps well result in levels of around 100 deaths a day in perpetuity (or at least during colder periods).
In which context we really should be referring as averages of 150 deaths a day, and likely falling in coming weeks, as present as something which justifies ongoing/reintroduction of restrictions.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
Well, as a proud Yoon I will have take your word that you have the correct definition for "the relevant parts of Scotland"
You're living there, actually. In the Doric lands.
Ah - so i'm right and you are wrong
Loon means younger person in Doric - nothing more nothing less
Loonie was the word at issue. It means a smaller younger person in Doric. Not a heidbanger or nyaff or bampot.
Can I have my (Canadian) $2 dollar's worth on this?
Just to throw this out there - Owen Paterson's resignation as an MP is enabled by the legal fiction of the Chancellor appointing him to be the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
In theory, the Chancellor could refuse.
And wouldn't that be fun.
Didn't Gerry Adams dispense with all that "legal fiction rubbish" when he quit parliament to stand in the Republic's election?
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Negligible? Can't you read the "deaths" graph through your blue-tinted spectacles?
Germany **** the bed today due to rising deaths, look at the graph, and you are claiming we've beaten Covid.
Germany is likely to have a much more difficult winter than us, with a lower vaccination rate, slow uptake of boosters, and lower levels of natural immunity.
They won't have a difficult winter, they'll end up having a lockdown and then the morons over here will scream and shout that we need one too.
I'm slightly surprised how poorly the US is doing in the booster stakes. It's available to anyone who's more than six months since their second dose - which is a lot of people eligible.
The Europeans should really start encouraging people to get boosters - it's not like they have any shortage of vaccines (almost 200 million doses in reserve). I think they've been lulled into a false sense of security by low current case rates. And if there's one thing we know about Covid, it's that it bites people in the arse who aren't proactive.
Lulled into a false sense of security (as they were last year) by assuming that what is alleged "going wrong" in the UK is a consequence of UK Government incompetence and not just the reality that the UK is further along the curve (eg. because early vaccinations meant waning happened earlier). And some of the EU may actually be more exposed BECAUSE they have been maintaining restrictions whereas the UK has got a lot of it out of the way in the Summer...
The thing is that when lockdown was lifted it was explicitly said that there would be an exit wave of cases and its better to get it done with now in the summer than in the winter.
And some people still view higher cases in unrestricted UK versus restricted Europe as a failure rather than a success. 🤦♂️
The UK is going to have an unrestricted winter with herd immunity from vaccines, boosters and natural immunity. The European nations that foolishly kept restrictions in the summer aren't going to be able to lift them in the winter and may have to ratchet them even further instead.
I think it depends on whether they get themselves into gear with boosters. At the peak of the EU vaccination campaign in May/June, they were managing to get almost 30m doses in arms a week (which is about 10x the current numbers). If they were able to get back to previous peak rates of vaccination, they'd get 50% of adults done in about five weeks.
But that requires them to realise there's an issue. And I don't think they do yet.
I suspect that the booster campaigns will not end up starting until there's a winter wave of cases... which they could probably avoid if they acted now.
That will certainly help, but boosters won't help the unvaccinated who haven't had their exit wave yet.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
The "my wife committed suicide" angle was appalling. Yes its a persona tragedy. But it is no defence against corruption. Or was he suggesting that he was so grief-stricken by her suicide that he accidentally made half a mil from lobbying? If so why is he saying he would do it all again?
In ordinary times I would ask how stupid the Tory party think people are. Sadly we know that they know quite a lot of people are pretty stupid...
It really isn't appalling. AIUI, the family believes the stress of the investigation - and her fears she would lose positions she loves, including one at the ?jockey club?, led her to do it. So it is perfectly acceptable to mention it.
It's amazing how quickly all the pleas for a kinder, more compassionate kind of politics after Amess's murder have been forgotten. His wife took her own life: he's perfectly right to mention it.
Had he not behaved abysmally, his wife would not have been under the fear of losing position.
Hold on. "Behaved abysmally" ? Get a grip. He did wrong. He broke the rules over lobbying. He probably should not be an MP (and will not be now). But no-one was hurt, no-one was threatened. Compare and contrast with (say) Webbe.
His wife committed suicide. It doesn't excuse what he did, but he darned well deserves compassion over it. And he ain't getting much of it on here.
I suggest you read my post on the previous thread at 10:41 am. It is possible to have very great sympathy for him because of his personal loss while criticising his behaviour as an MP.
Personal tragedy does not get you off the hook for your wrongdoings. If it did, our prisons would largely be empty since most of the people who end up in prison have suffered any number of personal tragedies and difficulties before they got there.
I totally agree. However (rightly or wrongly), it's often used in court as mitigation, is it not?
But that wasn't my main point.
I thought Paterson's work after his wife's death on suicide was admirable. See the interview on Woman's Hour I linked to earlier. He hoped that raising awareness would ensure that some good would come out of it.
(As you may know my family suffered a suicide last year so I know a very little of what he must have gone through. The interview he gave was very moving.)
His behaviour in recent days has not been admirable at all. He has been stupid. If he'd accepted the sanction, he'd still be an MP. As it is he has lost his job, made himself look ridiculous and venal and undone the good he tried to achieve with his work on suicide awareness and prevention.
I think it is best he is not an MP. But on a human level I imagine he is under a lot of stress right now - not least because he will also feel betrayed by the PM. I hope for his sake that his family and true friends rally round him now. He is also a father and grandfather.
I hope his friends are looking after him. Is it ungallant to note that those of his friends who tried to get him off have made his downfall even worse?
It's not ungallant. Sometimes our friends can help us see our own best interests better than we can.
He may feel betrayed and angry, but ultimately there is a connection between all his professional woes, and it's himself.
I'm reminded of the story that it was Denis who persuaded Maggie that it was time to go on that fateful day in 1990.
Whenever the time comes, will Carrie be able to do the same? Will Boris listen?
Who can say?
One possible difference is that the Thatchers were married about 8 years before Margaret Thatcher was elected as an MP, so they had a history together before politics at a high level. Not entirely sure when the relationship between the Johnson's started, but Wikipedia has it as being while Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary, so politics at a high level has always been part of their relationship to date, and may well have been part of the appeal. They might well be united in wanting to keep it going for as long as possible.
In the meantime, YCCC are suspended from hosting international or major matches until it has clearly demonstrated that it can meet the standards expected of an international venue, ECB member and First Class County.
Every day we sacrifice people's liberties under lockdown is a day lost to 67 million people. That's equivalent to 183,561 years sacrificed.
Lockdown was a price that was potentially arguably justified pre-vaccines. Now its simply inexcusable.
If people die, they die. Celebrate their life, and make the most of your own life.
Thank God you are no longer a member of the Tory Party. Go and find a nasty party to join.
Saying that death is a fact of life is "nasty" is it? No it isn't, its being realistic instead of delusional.
I think you'll find the Tory Party are treating this issue with the same cold logic as I am.
Your post is odious and callous in the extreme. It is an indicator of how you view the world. You need to get out more and mix with real people. Oh, hang on, maybe it is best you don't!
Just to throw this out there - Owen Paterson's resignation as an MP is enabled by the legal fiction of the Chancellor appointing him to be the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
In theory, the Chancellor could refuse.
And wouldn't that be fun.
Didn't Gerry Adams dispense with all that "legal fiction rubbish" when he quit parliament to stand in the Republic's election?
No. He said he didn't apply for the job but was told he had got it anyway
They may as well suspend me from England selection too.
Before any regulatory investigation is complete, the Board wishes to take immediate action in relation to Gary Ballance. While Mr Ballance has not been selected to play for England since 2017, he will be suspended indefinitely from selection. This position will be reviewed following the ECB regulatory investigation into his conduct.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
I thought a Loon was a bird...
That too, in North America.
Loons is what Americans call divers (Great Northern, Red Throated and Black Throated are the ones we can get in the UK). Majestic sights too.
Indeed. The haunting call of the Black-Throated Divers on remote lochs is the sound of summer in the far north.
Every day we sacrifice people's liberties under lockdown is a day lost to 67 million people. That's equivalent to 183,561 years sacrificed.
Lockdown was a price that was potentially arguably justified pre-vaccines. Now its simply inexcusable.
If people die, they die. Celebrate their life, and make the most of your own life.
Thank God you are no longer a member of the Tory Party. Go and find a nasty party to join.
Saying that death is a fact of life is "nasty" is it? No it isn't, its being realistic instead of delusional.
I think you'll find the Tory Party are treating this issue with the same cold logic as I am.
Your post is odious and callous in the extreme. It is an indicator of how you view the world. You need to get out more and mix with real people. Oh, hang on, maybe it is best you don't!
Saying to celebrate people's life is not callous.
Five people die every day on the roads, should we ban cars as a result?
In case any Tories on here wonder, how could a Tory government ever appear so chaotic and ridiculous, I give you the answer: Boris Johnson. I hate to say I told you so, but.... I told you so.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
Why the f*** did they not look at the allegations and defence before starting to defend him.
The paperwork was available online and made it 100% clear why this was the wrong case to do anything with.
Heck I said as much yesterday, no character witness can explain multiple letters (so not a single accidental mistake) where you misrepresent the reason you are writing the letter and fail to mention you are being paid to do so.
Some of them fell for the bullshit perpetuated on here about the Commissioner and the process.
Something which was rebutted extensively.
I though the Standards Committee dealt with this very well. They restrained themselves to commenting that they had found the personal allegations against the Commissioner unsubstantiated.
I’ve no idea who might be the MPs referred to in Paterson’s resignation letter who ‘mocked’ his dead wife, despite following the story quite closely.
I think it was actually a response to Mr Johnson's speech which was itself - not the suicide - seen as inappropriate. The Graun feed discusses this issue. See its entry for 1506 today:
"Oppositon MPs may be surprised by the claim in Owen Paterson’s statement that some of them mocked his wife’s death by suicide last year. (See 2.45pm.) He may have been referring to a moment during PMQs yesterday. In his sketch (paywall) for The Times (paywall), Quentin Letts said: “At PMQs earlier, Boris Johnson had mentioned Rose Paterson’s suicide. Up went several aw-diddums “ahhs” from the Labour side.” My colleague John Crace, the Guardian’s sketchwriter, was also in the gallery and he tells me he did not see anything that could be described as MPs mocking Rose’s death. My impression was that when Johnson mentioned Rose’s suicide, that did prompt a feint reaction from some MPs, but that was more because they felt Johnson was using Rose’s death as cover because he was finding it hard to justify the vote exempting Paterson from the standards committee recommendations. But I was listening to the debate on TV, not watching from the gallery, so I may have missed aspects of the reaction."
That makes sense. I heard that part of the debate, and the Guardian account seems far more accurate than that of Letts.
I suppose it’s possible he’s genuinely persuaded himself that’s the case, but objectively it seems nonsense.
The Guardian account seems far more accurate than= LOL
Nigel is giving his opinion having heard it. Now no doubt Nigel and the Guardian are capable of bias (particularly the Guardian), but don't you think it is possible that they have done a reasonable job and Nigel has spotted that is the case. Did you listen to the debate and read the Guardian article to know that Nigel is wrong?
Nope. Its just a huge stretch to think the Guardian would give an honest account of anything to do with the Tories. It never has done yet....
This whole business has been seriously mismanaged by the Govt, that doesn't mean one should use hyperbole with respect to the Guardian and its journalistic inegrity.
Its like saying you can trust the Daily Mail equally a huge LOL.
I thought I was cynical but...
I treat most newspapers reports with a pinch of salt but I don't dismiss them out of hand and if someone independent confirms the accuracy of the report I tend to believe them.
Also although I think the Daily Mail is a particularly bad newspaper it does occasionally get things right. Its campaign on the Stephen Lawrence murder was particularly commendable.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes they get stuff right.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
I thought a Loon was a bird...
That too, in North America.
Loons is what Americans call divers (Great Northern, Red Throated and Black Throated are the ones we can get in the UK). Majestic sights too.
Who is this Angela Richardson person who has been sacked and unsacked?
Tory MP, PPS to Michael Gove, didn't vote for the amendment yesterday.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it, Owen Paterson is the reverse - unsacked then sacked.
That's all today's news in a nutshell.
Apart from the "Independent" MP being found guilty of harrasment you mean
She was found guilty a month ago (sentencing today). When she was convicted, the Labour Party immediately called on her to resign as an MP, rather than trying to save her, then performing a screeching U-turn and throwing her under the bus.
In case any Tories on here wonder, how could a Tory government ever appear so chaotic and ridiculous, I give you the answer: Boris Johnson. I hate to say I told you so, but.... I told you so.
Yet if the Tories had not been led by Boris Johnson to a landslide election victory in 2019, then we may still have a hung parliament, Corbyn would still be Labour leader and we may still not have seen Brexit delivered.
Just to throw this out there - Owen Paterson's resignation as an MP is enabled by the legal fiction of the Chancellor appointing him to be the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
In theory, the Chancellor could refuse.
And wouldn't that be fun.
Technically, that is paid role. I've asked before, but forget the answer, how much is the payment? Is it something utterly meaningless, like a pound a year?
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
Why the f*** did they not look at the allegations and defence before starting to defend him.
The paperwork was available online and made it 100% clear why this was the wrong case to do anything with.
Heck I said as much yesterday, no character witness can explain multiple letters (so not a single accidental mistake) where you misrepresent the reason you are writing the letter and fail to mention you are being paid to do so.
Some of them fell for the bullshit perpetuated on here about the Commissioner and the process.
Something which was rebutted extensively.
I though the Standards Committee dealt with this very well. They restrained themselves to commenting that they had found the personal allegations against the Commissioner unsubstantiated.
I’ve no idea who might be the MPs referred to in Paterson’s resignation letter who ‘mocked’ his dead wife, despite following the story quite closely.
I think it was actually a response to Mr Johnson's speech which was itself - not the suicide - seen as inappropriate. The Graun feed discusses this issue. See its entry for 1506 today:
"Oppositon MPs may be surprised by the claim in Owen Paterson’s statement that some of them mocked his wife’s death by suicide last year. (See 2.45pm.) He may have been referring to a moment during PMQs yesterday. In his sketch (paywall) for The Times (paywall), Quentin Letts said: “At PMQs earlier, Boris Johnson had mentioned Rose Paterson’s suicide. Up went several aw-diddums “ahhs” from the Labour side.” My colleague John Crace, the Guardian’s sketchwriter, was also in the gallery and he tells me he did not see anything that could be described as MPs mocking Rose’s death. My impression was that when Johnson mentioned Rose’s suicide, that did prompt a feint reaction from some MPs, but that was more because they felt Johnson was using Rose’s death as cover because he was finding it hard to justify the vote exempting Paterson from the standards committee recommendations. But I was listening to the debate on TV, not watching from the gallery, so I may have missed aspects of the reaction."
That makes sense. I heard that part of the debate, and the Guardian account seems far more accurate than that of Letts.
I suppose it’s possible he’s genuinely persuaded himself that’s the case, but objectively it seems nonsense.
The Guardian account seems far more accurate than= LOL
Nigel is giving his opinion having heard it. Now no doubt Nigel and the Guardian are capable of bias (particularly the Guardian), but don't you think it is possible that they have done a reasonable job and Nigel has spotted that is the case. Did you listen to the debate and read the Guardian article to know that Nigel is wrong?
Nope. Its just a huge stretch to think the Guardian would give an honest account of anything to do with the Tories. It never has done yet....
This whole business has been seriously mismanaged by the Govt, that doesn't mean one should use hyperbole with respect to the Guardian and its journalistic inegrity.
Its like saying you can trust the Daily Mail equally a huge LOL.
I thought I was cynical but...
I treat most newspapers reports with a pinch of salt but I don't dismiss them out of hand and if someone independent confirms the accuracy of the report I tend to believe them.
Also although I think the Daily Mail is a particularly bad newspaper it does occasionally get things right. Its campaign on the Stephen Lawrence murder was particularly commendable.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes they get stuff right.
The alternative is just a way of avoiding debate. Those on the right can ignore anything in the Guardian, those on the left can ignore anything in the Mail, giving both sides carte blanche to get ever more divided and partisan.
Clearly as readers we need to be aware of and account for media bias, but we cannot ignore all media simply because it is biased or we doom ourselves to ignorance and prejudice.
What I don't get (and granted I was at the dentist between 9 and 10 this morning) is what changed that meant Boris and Co had no choice but to switch from protecting Owen to getting shot of him by close of play today?
From what I heard Tory MPs had sympathy for Paterson because of his wife’s suicide.
Overnight they finally read the allegations and his defence (sic) and realised he was guilty as sin.
So there had to be another vote to censure him and nobody wanted to defend that.
Why the f*** did they not look at the allegations and defence before starting to defend him.
The paperwork was available online and made it 100% clear why this was the wrong case to do anything with.
Heck I said as much yesterday, no character witness can explain multiple letters (so not a single accidental mistake) where you misrepresent the reason you are writing the letter and fail to mention you are being paid to do so.
Some of them fell for the bullshit perpetuated on here about the Commissioner and the process.
Something which was rebutted extensively.
I though the Standards Committee dealt with this very well. They restrained themselves to commenting that they had found the personal allegations against the Commissioner unsubstantiated.
I’ve no idea who might be the MPs referred to in Paterson’s resignation letter who ‘mocked’ his dead wife, despite following the story quite closely.
The video/audio of it is available online from the debate yesterday. When JRM mentioned that the death of his wife there was a chorus of very nasty mocking "ahhhs" coming from the Opposition benches.
That really was unpleasant. There has always been Punch & Judy politics in Westminster but to mock someone's death like that is just ugly. I have no idea who did it but if I was to guess it would be the usual suspects who backed Corbyn.
I’m sorry, Philip, but the reality is that any such derision - if that is what it is - was about the argument, not the wife. It was frankly disgraceful for Mogg to use it as part of his argument.
The fact is that Paterson alleged that the Commissioner is to blame for his wife’s death. The Standards Committee looked at this, and their comment was that he presented no evidence at all to substantiate what is a very damaging and personal allegation - as you’d know if you’d read their report.
This could just have been Paterson lashing out in grief, which is why I’ve refrained (as did the Committee) from criticising him for this. Mogg and Johnson have no such excuse.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
I thought a Loon was a bird...
That too, in North America.
Loons is what Americans call divers (Great Northern, Red Throated and Black Throated are the ones we can get in the UK). Majestic sights too.
Indeed. The haunting call of the Black-Throated Divers on remote lochs is the sound of summer in the far north.
And the Great Northern Diver the subject of a not bad children's book by Arthur Ransome.
Every day we sacrifice people's liberties under lockdown is a day lost to 67 million people. That's equivalent to 183,561 years sacrificed.
Lockdown was a price that was potentially arguably justified pre-vaccines. Now its simply inexcusable.
If people die, they die. Celebrate their life, and make the most of your own life.
Thank God you are no longer a member of the Tory Party. Go and find a nasty party to join.
Saying that death is a fact of life is "nasty" is it? No it isn't, its being realistic instead of delusional.
I think you'll find the Tory Party are treating this issue with the same cold logic as I am.
Your post is odious and callous in the extreme. It is an indicator of how you view the world. You need to get out more and mix with real people. Oh, hang on, maybe it is best you don't!
Saying to celebrate people's life is not callous.
Five people die every day on the roads, should we ban cars as a result?
I was referring to the callousness of your post. Your attempt to justify it looks a little like a parallel to anyone trying to justify what happened in parliament yesterday. It is a post that makes you look like an uncaring, callous little twerp at best. Whether you are an uncaring callous little twerp is only known to those that know you in real life. You do little to disabuse those of us on here who do not, but who think that is probably what you are.
Wor Lass back home after receiving her Booster. After two doses of Pfizer, this time she received Moderna.
Let's see what the side effects are like...
My booster is tomorrow. It'll be Pfizer, after two AZ. My colleague (same mix) feels mostly ok so far from his this morning.
Received text message from my GP surgery at 23.55 last night. This morning booked and received booster jab at 12.30 this afternoon- 3 weeks short of the 6 months period from 2nd injection.
The Scots seem to be using a 24 week (6 lunar month) rather than 6 calendar month margin - not complaining though, am booked for mine soon.
Are you implying that the Scottish medical establishment are a bunch of.... loonies?
No, just interested in the definition of 'six months' being used! As I say, I'm not complaining - it was "come and get yourt flu jab and your covid boost if applicable" and it was 24 weeks + 1 day since the second covid jab.
In any case, loon means something quite different in (part of) Scotland and loonie would be the first diminutive (or little wee bit loonockie if you want the full Scots quintuple diminutive).
Loonies is the same north and south of the border.
I think you're going for the loon = younger person in Scotland definition.
But the person (he/she) said loonie not loon
You're missing the point. Loonie means primarily what I say it means in the relevant parts of Scotland - there is however some importation of the alternative meaning.
I thought a Loon was a bird...
That too, in North America.
Loons is what Americans call divers (Great Northern, Red Throated and Black Throated are the ones we can get in the UK). Majestic sights too.
Indeed. The haunting call of the Black-Throated Divers on remote lochs is the sound of summer in the far north.
And the Great Northern Diver the subject of a not bad children's book by Arthur Ransome.
In case any Tories on here wonder, how could a Tory government ever appear so chaotic and ridiculous, I give you the answer: Boris Johnson. I hate to say I told you so, but.... I told you so.
Yet if the Tories had not been led by Boris Johnson to a landslide election victory in 2019, then we may still have a hung parliament, Corbyn would still be Labour leader and we may still not have seen Brexit delivered.
They may as well suspend me from England selection too.
Before any regulatory investigation is complete, the Board wishes to take immediate action in relation to Gary Ballance. While Mr Ballance has not been selected to play for England since 2017, he will be suspended indefinitely from selection. This position will be reviewed following the ECB regulatory investigation into his conduct.
I think you’re blameless in this matter, and should remain eligible.
Who is this Angela Richardson person who has been sacked and unsacked?
Tory MP, PPS to Michael Gove, didn't vote for the amendment yesterday.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it, Owen Paterson is the reverse - unsacked then sacked.
That's all today's news in a nutshell.
Apart from the "Independent" MP being found guilty of harrasment you mean
She was found guilty a month ago (sentencing today). When she was convicted, the Labour Party immediately called on her to resign as an MP, rather than trying to save her, then performing a screeching U-turn and throwing her under the bus.
It may not be a comparison you wish to highlight.
The sky ticker should have mentioned something about Labour rather than the obviously ambigious "Independant"
I think the parallels with the 1990s understate how serious the political corruption is this time.
The payments involved are of a different scale. The payments were made by a company benefitting from the lax procurement for mates of ministers that allowed them to charge a fortune to anyone needing a PCR test to go on holiday. And pretty well the whole of the Tory Party is directly implicated this time, with only 13 of their MPs having their hands absolutely clean.
Imagine the fall out if Neil Hamilton had received not 1 but 100 sets of brown envelopes and was then found to be in breach of parliamentary rules that at that time had real teeth, only for John Major to whip his obliging MPs to change the rules to let him off the hook and cancel a by-election.
They may as well suspend me from England selection too.
Before any regulatory investigation is complete, the Board wishes to take immediate action in relation to Gary Ballance. While Mr Ballance has not been selected to play for England since 2017, he will be suspended indefinitely from selection. This position will be reviewed following the ECB regulatory investigation into his conduct.
I get the impression that Ballance's name was still floating around until quite recently though. Root was allegedly keen on a recall.
The Covid death rate in parts of Europe is now higher than the peak here before the vaccines.
The UK is still "beating" its Western European peers on deaths though.
The UK is also beating its Western European peers on having lifted all restrictions, which is more important than the negligible number of deaths that are occurring at the moment.
Hardly negligible - around 10% of all deaths in the UK are currently from covid. But I suppose that for some people money is more important than life.
People die. 10% of all deaths is something that we can live with.
No, I must not, I must not, I must not ...
We live with death happening on a daily basis kinabalu. On a daily basis 99.999% of people are not dying and 99.9999% of people are not dying from Covid (0.0009% are dying from other causes).
If you think you can eliminate death then that's just silly.
It was just the way you put it - we (who do not die this year) can live with the dying of those who do. You kind of forgot the bit in brackets.
Anyway, on your serious point. Death can't be eliminated, no, but it can be delayed. And that's the hope of almost all people for themselves and their loved and liked ones. That it's delayed for as long as possible (assuming body parts and faculties stay in order).
Covid is atm the biggest (or one of the biggest) threats to this aspiration. It needs to recede quite a lot further from here before we can call it just one of the cast. Hopefully (and imo probably) we'll be there by next Feb. But we aren't there yet.
Just to throw this out there - Owen Paterson's resignation as an MP is enabled by the legal fiction of the Chancellor appointing him to be the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
In theory, the Chancellor could refuse.
And wouldn't that be fun.
Technically, that is paid role. I've asked before, but forget the answer, how much is the payment? Is it something utterly meaningless, like a pound a year?
Every day we sacrifice people's liberties under lockdown is a day lost to 67 million people. That's equivalent to 183,561 years sacrificed.
Lockdown was a price that was potentially arguably justified pre-vaccines. Now its simply inexcusable.
If people die, they die. Celebrate their life, and make the most of your own life.
Thank God you are no longer a member of the Tory Party. Go and find a nasty party to join.
Saying that death is a fact of life is "nasty" is it? No it isn't, its being realistic instead of delusional.
I think you'll find the Tory Party are treating this issue with the same cold logic as I am.
Your post is odious and callous in the extreme. It is an indicator of how you view the world. You need to get out more and mix with real people. Oh, hang on, maybe it is best you don't!
Saying to celebrate people's life is not callous.
Five people die every day on the roads, should we ban cars as a result?
I was referring to the callousness of your post. Your attempt to justify it looks a little like a parallel to anyone trying to justify what happened in parliament yesterday. It is a post that makes you look like an uncaring, callous little twerp at best. Whether you are an uncaring callous little twerp is only known to those that know you in real life. You do little to disabuse those of us on here who do not, but who think that is probably what you are.
Anyone who doesn't care about the destitution and misery that lockdown causes is an uncaring, callous little twerp.
Just to throw this out there - Owen Paterson's resignation as an MP is enabled by the legal fiction of the Chancellor appointing him to be the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
In theory, the Chancellor could refuse.
And wouldn't that be fun.
Didn't Gerry Adams dispense with all that "legal fiction rubbish" when he quit parliament to stand in the Republic's election?
No. He said he didn't apply for the job but was told he had got it anyway
Comments
37269 cases means a wonderful Tractor!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Class_37s_at_Paddington,_1970s.jpg#/media/File:Class_37s_at_Paddington,_1970s.jpg
Whenever the time comes, will Carrie be able to do the same? Will Boris listen?
Still he is now off the stage so leave him be. It is the behaviour of the PM and the rest of the party which matters now.
The only ones dying young now are [barring extreme exceptions] the unvaccinated. They've made their bed, they can lie in it.
The vaccinated who are dying are predominantly those close to death where any illness can be the final straw.
If the unvaccinated want to die early then yes I am OK to live with that. And if the price of keeping those who've lived their lives already even longer is to tell everyone they can't live their lives, then I'm not prepared to pay that price - are you?
Fortunately for Mr Johnson, majorities in the South are typically ample, and there's often no clear challenger.
It leads me to expect that the Conservatives will gain 10 seats from boundary changes, and drop 20 seats (or maybe a little more), but maintain a fairly healthy majority.
Of course, events may well intervene to make this forecast look foolish.
From another PB.
Had you asked Popbitch to select an MP to head up a new committee to investigate and uphold parliamentary standards, then we probably would have settled on John Whittingdale: the former Culture Secretary who once got caught taking a dominatrix on a freebie trip to the MTV Awards in Amsterdam, which he then failed to declare.
Who better to examine the details of MPs' contentious lobbying efforts than the man who also failed to declare the free hospitality he accepted from a London lapdancing club at the same time he was chairing an inquiry into the licensing process for London lapdancing clubs?
He'd have been the Popbitch pick for sure – and it seems the only difference between us and Her Majesty's Government is that, critically, we'd have been joking...
Death is a fact of life, we have to live with it. Don't try and emotionally blackmail people into accepting restrictions because of deaths that simply are going to happen.
How many non-terminally ill vaccinated people are dying on a daily basis?
Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring, sentencing, said: "I have no doubt that, when not overtaken by jealousy and rage, you are a hard-working, upstanding member of Parliament and of society.
"[But] the level of harassment and the threats you made cannot be excused."
He added he found it "odd and concerning" that the probation service report said Webbe felt like a victim herself.
The district judge said he counted four occasions when Webbe referred to herself as "the victim" during her testimony from the witness box.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-59162007
Yesterday, your line would have sort of worked - much though I think the defence of Paterson yesterday was utterly unprincipled excusing of blatant sleaze to defend a sleazy PM and a pal who'd been caught red-handed with fingers in the cookie jar, maybe a few Tory MPs were dumb enough to have genuinely bought into it all.
But what Fabbers is doing now is simply going on the airwaves because he likes Fabbers being on the airwaves. It's harming his party defending an indefensible position, and does less than nothing for Paterson who has resigned as an MP and will now simply want this to blow over and be forgotten. Nobody but Fabbers benefits at this stage.
Lockdown restrictions is trying to do delay it for what is unreasonably possible.
97-year-old mayor reelected to four-year term in New Jersey
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/580057-97-year-old-mayor-reelected-to-four-year-term-in-new-jersey
Loon means younger person in Doric - nothing more nothing less
(As aside, the numbers for South America are horrifying - whole hosts of countries that have seen 50+% more deaths, and some with more than twice the normal level. For the best part of two years.)
This whole business has been seriously mismanaged by the Govt, that doesn't mean one should use hyperbole with respect to the Guardian and its journalistic inegrity.
Its like saying you can trust the Daily Mail equally a huge LOL.
Telling people they can't go to mass events etc is like saying you are banning cars altogether.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/03/call-out-tories-corruption-conservative-owen-paterson-keir-starmer
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Starmer's got his first significant political scalp today. It's about time, but better late than never.
Females get called quine.
Hense the less age derived Lass as a moniker of ChrissyD of this parish.
Total cases on Sunday: 28,672
Total cases the previous Sunday: 29,453
Smileys and Diet Sage will never recover.
https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1456294846977748999?s=20
Lockdown was a price that was potentially arguably justified pre-vaccines. Now its simply inexcusable.
If people die, they die. Celebrate their life, and make the most of your own life.
I'd also like to think I've got a better personality - although that might not always show up on here ...
@Philip_Thompson is quite right to point out that most Covid deaths are in people who have wilfully chosen not to avail themselves of the protection of vaccines, or in the very old and frail. This will leave some casualties who are in reasonable health but just bloody unlucky, but there are all manner of other causes of death that would be preventable with sufficiently tough restrictions, yet where we choose not to bother. The five people a day who get killed in Britain in a typical year in road traffic accidents would all survive if we abolished motorized transport, for example. It doesn't necessarily follow that such a measure would be either proportionate or desirable.
Just to throw this out there - Owen Paterson's resignation as an MP is enabled by the legal fiction of the Chancellor appointing him to be the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
In theory, the Chancellor could refuse.
And wouldn't that be fun.
But I don't know what the answer is: some people will be lying for their own benefit; others will be unaware or incapable of job opportunities they could do; and others will force themselves to do things that are bad for their health. How do you separate the good from the bad? How do you tell how much pain someone is really in?
But that requires them to realise there's an issue. And I don't think they do yet.
I suspect that the booster campaigns will not end up starting until there's a winter wave of cases... which they could probably avoid if they acted now.
Edit/ I may have misread that. Close, tho.
I'm eagerly awaiting to see how context would help justify some of the things she is quoted as saying in her harrassing behaviour.
In which context we really should be referring as averages of 150 deaths a day, and likely falling in coming weeks, as present as something which justifies ongoing/reintroduction of restrictions.
Been busy but a lot seems to be happening today.
Who is this Angela Richardson person who has been sacked and unsacked?
I bet if you check, a lot of it was on a bus route.
That Greek guy who did the first long distance run dropped dead at the end of it, as I recall (from history, obvs). There’s the clue, right there.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it, Owen Paterson is the reverse - unsacked then sacked.
That's all today's news in a nutshell.
I think you'll find the Tory Party are treating this issue with the same cold logic as I am.
The principled member of the Government.
One possible difference is that the Thatchers were married about 8 years before Margaret Thatcher was elected as an MP, so they had a history together before politics at a high level. Not entirely sure when the relationship between the Johnson's started, but Wikipedia has it as being while Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary, so politics at a high level has always been part of their relationship to date, and may well have been part of the appeal. They might well be united in wanting to keep it going for as long as possible.
In the meantime, YCCC are suspended from hosting international or major matches until it has clearly demonstrated that it can meet the standards expected of an international venue, ECB member and First Class County.
https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/2337251
They may as well suspend me from England selection too.
Before any regulatory investigation is complete, the Board wishes to take immediate action in relation to Gary Ballance. While Mr Ballance has not been selected to play for England since 2017, he will be suspended indefinitely from selection. This position will be reviewed following the ECB regulatory investigation into his conduct.
Five people die every day on the roads, should we ban cars as a result?
I treat most newspapers reports with a pinch of salt but I don't dismiss them out of hand and if someone independent confirms the accuracy of the report I tend to believe them.
Also although I think the Daily Mail is a particularly bad newspaper it does occasionally get things right. Its campaign on the Stephen Lawrence murder was particularly commendable.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes they get stuff right.
It may not be a comparison you wish to highlight.
https://twitter.com/MattCartoonist/status/1456322502356000774
I'm wondering; have any PBers having taken a punt on Gamestop? - I think they're up about 1000pc YTD
Clearly as readers we need to be aware of and account for media bias, but we cannot ignore all media simply because it is biased or we doom ourselves to ignorance and prejudice.
The fact is that Paterson alleged that the Commissioner is to blame for his wife’s death. The Standards Committee looked at this, and their comment was that he presented no evidence at all to substantiate what is a very damaging and personal allegation - as you’d know if you’d read their report.
This could just have been Paterson lashing out in grief, which is why I’ve refrained (as did the Committee) from criticising him for this. Mogg and Johnson have no such excuse.
The payments involved are of a different scale. The payments were made by a company benefitting from the lax procurement for mates of ministers that allowed them to charge a fortune to anyone needing a PCR test to go on holiday. And pretty well the whole of the Tory Party is directly implicated this time, with only 13 of their MPs having their hands absolutely clean.
Imagine the fall out if Neil Hamilton had received not 1 but 100 sets of brown envelopes and was then found to be in breach of parliamentary rules that at that time had real teeth, only for John Major to whip his obliging MPs to change the rules to let him off the hook and cancel a by-election.
https://twitter.com/MattCartoonist/status/1456322502356000774?s=20
Anyway, on your serious point. Death can't be eliminated, no, but it can be delayed. And that's the hope of almost all people for themselves and their loved and liked ones. That it's delayed for as long as possible (assuming body parts and faculties stay in order).
Covid is atm the biggest (or one of the biggest) threats to this aspiration. It needs to recede quite a lot further from here before we can call it just one of the cast. Hopefully (and imo probably) we'll be there by next Feb. But we aren't there yet.
Nil, nowt, zero, nul francs.