HMRC's petition is stage 1. Suggestion is that Afriyie was looking for a bailout, in order to avoid bankruptcy, but I am pretty certain an IVA would avoid the need for a by election, too, a point which appears to have escaped many commentators.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
Also this:
""He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.""
There is only so much that can be gained by micro-analysing recent COVID data, but I was curios so calculated the change in reported cases in England for each day compared to the same day a week earlier.
I don't think this shows much, but as I have typed it out I thought I would share.
The detailed age breakdown for England -
Suggest that cases are going up among the children.
Are they going up among the children or are more children testing positive due to the return to school? What I mean is, are more children catching the virus or is the number the same but more are being detected due to testing children routinely?
Your guess is as good as mine. Without actual genomic data - the actual infection trees derived from genetic data in the virus - it is not possible to know.
The guesstimate is that since COVID is less severe in children, the percentages of asymptomatic cases are higher. So without mass surveillance testing (LFT), more cases might not be tracked.
But I haven't seen any peer reviewed science on that one.
Anyone aware of any foreign school trips from the UK to abroad in the last year? I know of outward bound trips to Wales, but its not what I would call (completely) foreign.
No but there are loads planned for the winter/spring.
The first issue is the one I posted about this morning - that children who have had one jab (the UK recommendation) are classed as unvaccinated everywhere other than the UK. This has partly been sorted today with the announcement of the second jab for 16 - 17 year olds. Our friends daughter, age 15, has just had her school trip cancelled and she is very upset about it. Her cancellation is partly due to the one-jab limitation but is also due to the problem that I describe in my last post below.
It is a real shame.
It is also, surely, a shame that we can fix, at least on our side. Just change the rules for school trips, and hope that the EU sees sense and does the same for us
Won't happen, the government won't make any exceptions, that whole free movement thingy, they are absolutists on that.
It's a feature not a bug. If Priti can't stop them coming over from France in dinghies then we will stop them coming over in coaches.
Hmm. If it is Brexit then that is ridiculous, and HMG needs to sort it at once. They are our rules and we can change them
I've seen some shite copied and pasted in my time but this is a belter. If foreign school trips aren't down 99% on 2019 it's a disgrace, and that's nothing to do with Brexit.
Things can have more than one cause. There is a simple test. Britain and France both had covid but only one has Brexit. Are German school trips to France down by the same margin as German school trips to Britain? Or by more, or by less? Rinse and repeat for other countries.
We are told too often that Effect X is due to Covid not Brexit. If Brexit has had no effect on anything then what was the bloody point?
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
Also this:
""He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.""
+1 - the organisers of the school trip don't do the passport / visa paperwork that was usually left to the school
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Hang on: do you mean that schools sending pupils to the UK are paying their teachers to go? I normally end up out of pocket after the trips I’ve done.
Your paid a basic aren't you? If you accompany the children you will be working not touristing. Same goes for the employees of the school trip company that the schools tend to contract out to these days. They are all workers and have lost the right to work in the EU without a visa - which they either cannot get or because it is too much bloody hassle/costly.
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
It feels bad to me. One of the most obvious of political errors: over-promising then under-delivering. Always do the opposite
One of the upsides of the pandemic is that I haven't spent the last 20 months at Manchester Piccadilly at rush hour.
This is going to cost the Tories a lot in the marginals in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
So what are they playing at?
It’s capital investment, so unlikely to be about the money.
Most of the Tory opposition is motivated by the concerns of Tories in the Home Counties - yet that part is going ahead.
Where’s the upside of dropping the bit near Nottingham?
I think it is indeed the HC Tories - being appeased about money not being spent on northern proles (their views/language, not mine).
Apart from within Leeds (who seemingly get the tram network they've always / never wanted) I can see this costing a whole lot of Tory seats.
The Brexit dividend of higher pay will be long forgotten by 2023 but most Red Wall MPs will be hard pushed to answer what have you given this constituency...
Far be it from me to defend the Tories (perish the thought), but I wonder if people are misreading the strategy? Maybe they are banking on the levelling-up fund - those dollops of money going to largely Tory towns - to provide concrete evidence of what they are doing for the Red Wall? After all, such schemes could pay off in a much shorter timescale than the grandiose infrastructure projects such as Northerner Powerhouse Rail or whatever it's called. Let's be honest, their main concern is to have concrete (sic) things in place in time to win the next GE.
Slightly worried to see that Gove has been given Levelling Up. He's a bit of an operator and not just on the dancefloor.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
That's not what the article talks about. It mentions EU and non-EU students. However there has been no change in the visa requirement for non-EU citizens, and EU citizens have visa free travel as tourists. It's not clear what the change actually is.
The EU students can't travel on a group passport anymore. They all need individual ones, so obviously costs much more.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
Also this:
""He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.""
Thanks, that clarifies the change in the visa rules. If I were to guess the UK is simply not allowed to participate as a non-member.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
That's not what the article talks about. It mentions EU and non-EU students. However there has been no change in the visa requirement for non-EU citizens, and EU citizens have visa free travel as tourists. It's not clear what the change actually is.
The EU students can't travel on a group passport anymore. They all need individual ones, so obviously costs much more.
Which is a problem when they can go anywhere is Schengen with just their ID cards...
Only problem is: when you request a vaccine certificate having had the booster jab, they send you the same one you had before saying you've had two jabs, not three.
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
It feels bad to me. One of the most obvious of political errors: over-promising then under-delivering. Always do the opposite
Johnson does the opposite. Claim credit for work done by other people. Drive mad ideas named after you. Blame other people when they don't happen. Make up a daft plan ("40 new hospitals!") and then find a way to try and claim it has happened anyway. Hence "new hospitals" being claimed but not actually being delivered.
As I have said repeatedly, the red wall voted Brexit and then Tory because they are sick of decades of decline. Having finally been offered the Promised Land they aren't going to be fobbed off patronised or lied to.
I can't see the sense in banning the sale of internal combustion engines from 2030, and not having a comprehensive plan to electrify every railway line.
The question of which technology is going to be used is still up in the air.
My guess is that it will be battery packs on trains, with charging from overhead in various areas.
Ah, I suppose that makes sense. Maybe you could have trains charge up from overheads on the approach and departure from stations, and that would mean they could use power from the overhead wires for the most energy-intensive phase of the acceleration from the station.
Merseyrail are going to order some battery-pack trains so they can extend their services from the edge of their electrified network: their trials indicate that the trains can operate for up to twenty miles on non-electrified track before needing further charge. The recent West Midlands tram extension uses battery-pack tech to avoid having to put up catenary in an architecturally-sensitive area. And of course there is the Parry People Movers, which use flywheel rather than battery storage and which have been happily shuttling back and forth between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town for over a decade now.
There is only so much that can be gained by micro-analysing recent COVID data, but I was curios so calculated the change in reported cases in England for each day compared to the same day a week earlier.
I don't think this shows much, but as I have typed it out I thought I would share.
The detailed age breakdown for England -
Suggest that cases are going up among the children.
Are they going up among the children or are more children testing positive due to the return to school? What I mean is, are more children catching the virus or is the number the same but more are being detected due to testing children routinely?
Your guess is as good as mine. Without actual genomic data - the actual infection trees derived from genetic data in the virus - it is not possible to know.
The guesstimate is that since COVID is less severe in children, the percentages of asymptomatic cases are higher. So without mass surveillance testing (LFT), more cases might not be tracked.
But I haven't seen any peer reviewed science on that one.
If it coincides with return to school - which is does - this indicates to me that it is the additional testing of the non-poorly-though-possibly-infected which is the factor. If so, then we should stop all of this testing of people who are not ill because it serves no purpose other than to mislead and create more fear.
Only problem is: when you request a vaccine certificate having had the booster jab, they send you the same one you had before saying you've had two jabs, not three.
Javid said today that they are going to have a system which includes the booster shot, doesn't make sense not to have it.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
That's not what the article talks about. It mentions EU and non-EU students. However there has been no change in the visa requirement for non-EU citizens, and EU citizens have visa free travel as tourists. It's not clear what the change actually is.
He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Hang on: do you mean that schools sending pupils to the UK are paying their teachers to go? I normally end up out of pocket after the trips I’ve done.
Your paid a basic aren't you? If you accompany the children you will be working not touristing. Same goes for the employees of the school trip company that the schools tend to contract out to these days. They are all workers and have lost the right to work in the EU without a visa - which they either cannot get or because it is too much bloody hassle/costly.
I’ve done trips to some places I don’t think were in the EU, like Mongolia, and there were no problems with anything more than a basic visa.
I don’t get paid to go, and most trips I’ve been on have been holidays/weekends.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
That's not what the article talks about. It mentions EU and non-EU students. However there has been no change in the visa requirement for non-EU citizens, and EU citizens have visa free travel as tourists. It's not clear what the change actually is.
The EU students can't travel on a group passport anymore. They all need individual ones, so obviously costs much more.
They also can no longer travel on ID cards, although I don't know if kids generally have them.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
So what are they playing at?
It’s capital investment, so unlikely to be about the money.
Most of the Tory opposition is motivated by the concerns of Tories in the Home Counties - yet that part is going ahead.
Where’s the upside of dropping the bit near Nottingham?
I think it is indeed the HC Tories - being appeased about money not being spent on northern proles (their views/language, not mine).
Apart from within Leeds (who seemingly get the tram network they've always / never wanted) I can see this costing a whole lot of Tory seats.
The Brexit dividend of higher pay will be long forgotten by 2023 but most Red Wall MPs will be hard pushed to answer what have you given this constituency...
Plus of course there isn’t actually forecast to be a higher pay Brexit dividend away.
Exceptional stuff from Labour. Big poll lead? Time to send respects and condolences to the family of a suicide bomber who tried to attack a rememberance sunday service.
When I saw this earlier, I thought it was a joke about the ineptness of Labour and how they'd mess things up. But it actually happened!
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
That's not what the article talks about. It mentions EU and non-EU students. However there has been no change in the visa requirement for non-EU citizens, and EU citizens have visa free travel as tourists. It's not clear what the change actually is.
He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.
Thanks, someone else highlighted that, too. It does explain the change.
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
It feels bad to me. One of the most obvious of political errors: over-promising then under-delivering. Always do the opposite
One of the upsides of the pandemic is that I haven't spent the last 20 months at Manchester Piccadilly at rush hour.
This is going to cost the Tories a lot in the marginals in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.
Could be worse. When I was working in Sheffield and had need to travel to central Manchester for a meeting, it could take 2 hours to drive city centre to city centre. OK so its an hour on the train, but its only 43 miles...
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
It feels bad to me. One of the most obvious of political errors: over-promising then under-delivering. Always do the opposite
One of the upsides of the pandemic is that I haven't spent the last 20 months at Manchester Piccadilly at rush hour.
This is going to cost the Tories a lot in the marginals in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.
What will be worse is the number of weekends when the line will need a replacement bus service to allow the improvements to be made. One reasons for HS2 was because otherwise the WCML would need to be closed every weekend for years to get the work done.
The same is true of the trans-Pennine line but instead it will be closed most weekends to remind people about Boris's levelling up false promises.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
Also this:
""He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.""
Thanks, that clarifies the change in the visa rules. If I were to guess the UK is simply not allowed to participate as a non-member.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Isabelle Regiani has led class trips to the UK from her school in eastern France throughout her 22-year career as an English teacher, but she will not be bringing her students back any time soon.
Post-Brexit changes to UK immigration rules mean EU schoolchildren can no longer travel on group passports and non-EU students require expensive individual visas, putting a trip to England financially out of reach for some of Regiani’s pupils and thousands of others in mainland Europe.
Regiani’s students at Jean Jaurès middle school in Sarreguemines will instead have to settle for Calais. “It’s disappointing,” she said. “We’ll visit places in touch with English culture and we’ll have a walk on the beach in Calais and we’ll see the cliffs, and I’ll say ‘see there’s the white cliffs of Dover’.”
Large tour companies across the continent have reported a collapse in school bookings to Britain in 2022. Despite the pandemic, relative to the UK inquiries are increasing for other destinations where English is widely spoken in the EU, such as Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
The trends bear out warnings to Boris Johnson by French and German school exchange companies last spring that the new immigration rules would erode school cultural exchanges between the EU and UK, with negative consequences for cultural exchanges that were “crucial for the future of our societies”.
Travel industry estimates suggest French and German schools alone send at least 17,000 trips to the UK each year, with French school groups’ direct input into the UK valued at £100m. The British Educational Travel Association, BETA, estimates the total value of the industry, including language schools, at £1.5bn a year.
A survey last month of French schools by Unosel, the international association for language and homestays, suggested the number of planned trips to the UK had fallen by almost two-thirds. Eurovoyages, a French company that sent 11,000 students to the UK in 2019, said less than 100 students would travel to Britain this year, with clients instead switching to Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
Marie Bayol from Verdie Open Class, another French operator, said it had organised more than 800 school groups in 2019 for 36,000 students, but had just 34 groups scheduled for 2022, none of which had confirmed.
I loved my school trips.
Hold on, why do tourists require visas?
It's not the tourists it's the employees of the tour companies.
Also this:
""He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.""
Thanks, that clarifies the change in the visa rules. If I were to guess the UK is simply not allowed to participate as a non-member.
No, we willingly pulled out of that.
If there were no conditions of membership then that was stupid. But these things are often not that clear-cut.
HMRC's petition is stage 1. Suggestion is that Afriyie was looking for a bailout, in order to avoid bankruptcy, but I am pretty certain an IVA would avoid the need for a by election, too, a point which appears to have escaped many commentators.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Hang on: do you mean that schools sending pupils to the UK are paying their teachers to go? I normally end up out of pocket after the trips I’ve done.
Your paid a basic aren't you? If you accompany the children you will be working not touristing. Same goes for the employees of the school trip company that the schools tend to contract out to these days. They are all workers and have lost the right to work in the EU without a visa - which they either cannot get or because it is too much bloody hassle/costly.
I’ve done trips to some places I don’t think were in the EU, like Mongolia, and there were no problems with anything more than a basic visa.
I don’t get paid to go, and most trips I’ve been on have been holidays/weekends.
But if you aren'tr working, you aren't covered by the school's insurance, are you? Or are you? I do hope so.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
I can't see the sense in banning the sale of internal combustion engines from 2030, and not having a comprehensive plan to electrify every railway line.
The question of which technology is going to be used is still up in the air.
My guess is that it will be battery packs on trains, with charging from overhead in various areas.
Ah, I suppose that makes sense. Maybe you could have trains charge up from overheads on the approach and departure from stations, and that would mean they could use power from the overhead wires for the most energy-intensive phase of the acceleration from the station.
Merseyrail are going to order some battery-pack trains so they can extend their services from the edge of their electrified network: their trials indicate that the trains can operate for up to twenty miles on non-electrified track before needing further charge. The recent West Midlands tram extension uses battery-pack tech to avoid having to put up catenary in an architecturally-sensitive area. And of course there is the Parry People Movers, which use flywheel rather than battery storage and which have been happily shuttling back and forth between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town for over a decade now.
Flywheels get funky when turning corners is involved. How do they deal with that?
I can't see the sense in banning the sale of internal combustion engines from 2030, and not having a comprehensive plan to electrify every railway line.
The question of which technology is going to be used is still up in the air.
My guess is that it will be battery packs on trains, with charging from overhead in various areas.
Ah, I suppose that makes sense. Maybe you could have trains charge up from overheads on the approach and departure from stations, and that would mean they could use power from the overhead wires for the most energy-intensive phase of the acceleration from the station.
Merseyrail are going to order some battery-pack trains so they can extend their services from the edge of their electrified network: their trials indicate that the trains can operate for up to twenty miles on non-electrified track before needing further charge. The recent West Midlands tram extension uses battery-pack tech to avoid having to put up catenary in an architecturally-sensitive area. And of course there is the Parry People Movers, which use flywheel rather than battery storage and which have been happily shuttling back and forth between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town for over a decade now.
Flywheels get funky when turning corners is involved. How do they deal with that?
Especially on the wriggly railways across the Pennines pointed out earlier.
I can't see the sense in banning the sale of internal combustion engines from 2030, and not having a comprehensive plan to electrify every railway line.
The question of which technology is going to be used is still up in the air.
My guess is that it will be battery packs on trains, with charging from overhead in various areas.
Ah, I suppose that makes sense. Maybe you could have trains charge up from overheads on the approach and departure from stations, and that would mean they could use power from the overhead wires for the most energy-intensive phase of the acceleration from the station.
Merseyrail are going to order some battery-pack trains so they can extend their services from the edge of their electrified network: their trials indicate that the trains can operate for up to twenty miles on non-electrified track before needing further charge. The recent West Midlands tram extension uses battery-pack tech to avoid having to put up catenary in an architecturally-sensitive area. And of course there is the Parry People Movers, which use flywheel rather than battery storage and which have been happily shuttling back and forth between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town for over a decade now.
Flywheels get funky when turning corners is involved. How do they deal with that?
The Stourbridge line isn't very bent, and I suspect they don't go fast and/or the flywheel is under the floor.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
There was (and is) a sub-group of JCVI who are opposed to child vaccination and boosters on the grounds that they think the vaccinations should go to the developing world. There is also a sub-group that doesn't want child vaccination on the basis that the benefit to the child, themselves, isn't big enough.
Not sure how these subgroups overlap - but they probably do.
The issue was the JCVI was trying for unanimity in their decisions.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
Then she's an idiot (in this case). Despite doing great work on the vax
They weren't just idiotic they were wrong. Imagine if we HAD given away all those doses, and we were unable to do the booster campaign and jab the kids? How would they be feeling now? What would the British public think of them?
These wanker do-gooders should be grateful they were eventually over-ruled by politicians, or they might now be in hiding
HMRC's petition is stage 1. Suggestion is that Afriyie was looking for a bailout, in order to avoid bankruptcy, but I am pretty certain an IVA would avoid the need for a by election, too, a point which appears to have escaped many commentators.
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
Not just that, and the M62 is abysmal and the TPE is poor even with the new rolling stock. However also up to Newcastle is poor too and the east leg of HS2 would have improved train times from the North East too.
There is only so much that can be gained by micro-analysing recent COVID data, but I was curios so calculated the change in reported cases in England for each day compared to the same day a week earlier.
I don't think this shows much, but as I have typed it out I thought I would share.
The detailed age breakdown for England -
Suggest that cases are going up among the children.
What i don't get is why it tpok sp long fpr cases to go up in children in England both after the summer holidays and after half term. On scotland cases instantly started accelerating amongst children. In England there seems to have been a lag, especially after summer, to the extent that I've been fooled. Into think there wasn't going to be a mass rise.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
That does look good, and hopefully it is, but, as some cases are not 'reported' and allocated to an age group until 3, 4 or more days after the sample is taken, could the stabilisation in cases over the last 2 days in this graph 12, 13 November, just be the cases not fully updated yet?
Unless the graph is consistently cases reported within 2 days of sample?
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Hang on: do you mean that schools sending pupils to the UK are paying their teachers to go? I normally end up out of pocket after the trips I’ve done.
Your paid a basic aren't you? If you accompany the children you will be working not touristing. Same goes for the employees of the school trip company that the schools tend to contract out to these days. They are all workers and have lost the right to work in the EU without a visa - which they either cannot get or because it is too much bloody hassle/costly.
I’ve done trips to some places I don’t think were in the EU, like Mongolia, and there were no problems with anything more than a basic visa.
I don’t get paid to go, and most trips I’ve been on have been holidays/weekends.
Yeah, I had a sixth form school trip to Washington D.C, and everyone had to have a passport and an ESTA (this was just over 10 years ago, showing my age here). The teacher organised everyone getting their ESTA on one weekday evening in the sixth form library and everything was sorted.
Forgive me for not being all that sympathetic. If schools in some EU nations are only willing to travel on group passports or national ID cards then that's a pretty insular world view.
Other non-EEA/EFTA/Schengen countries would likely treat those schools the same as the UK treats them, so why is it that the UK is expected to move on this?
Having said that, I do think that there should be a visa waiver for educational purposes. We shouldn't be making it more difficult for refugee children who have ended up in an EU country to visit than the actual nationals there.
Right, I'm going balls deep on the Tories losing Old Bexley & Sidcup.
The Bexley by-election candidate says he might just keep his job as a Mayfair-based fund manager if he gets elected because, don't worry, he's not a "career politician"
Exceptional stuff from Labour. Big poll lead? Time to send respects and condolences to the family of a suicide bomber who tried to attack a rememberance sunday service.
When I saw this earlier, I thought it was a joke about the ineptness of Labour and how they'd mess things up. But it actually happened!
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
It feels bad to me. One of the most obvious of political errors: over-promising then under-delivering. Always do the opposite
One of the upsides of the pandemic is that I haven't spent the last 20 months at Manchester Piccadilly at rush hour.
This is going to cost the Tories a lot in the marginals in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.
How many votes do you have - surely not enough to swing Greater Manchester and Yorkshire?
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
Then she's an idiot (in this case). Despite doing great work on the vax
They weren't just idiotic they were wrong. Imagine if we HAD given away all those doses, and we were unable to do the booster campaign and jab the kids? How would they be feeling now? What would the British public think of them?
These wanker do-gooders should be grateful they were eventually over-ruled by politicians, or they might now be in hiding
That's an irrational and jaundiced way of putting it.
This is a global pandemic and we have rich nations giving 3rd 'top up' jabs to their adult populations and vaccinating kids before some poorer countries have even been able to give the basic 1st jab protection to their most vulnerables.
It's a perfectly respectable opinion - morally and pragmatically - to say that's wrong.
To call those holding such an opinion 'wanker do-gooders' is like if I were to call you a 'selfish prick who can't see beyond the end of his nose' for holding the opposite opinion.
Right, I'm going balls deep on the Tories losing Old Bexley & Sidcup.
The Bexley by-election candidate says he might just keep his job as a Mayfair-based fund manager if he gets elected because, don't worry, he's not a "career politician"
ATM I think Labour have a better chance at OB&S than the LDs do at N Shropshire. The bookies think otherwise and some might see value in this. I wouldn't bet the farm on anything for either of them. Slightly too many imponderables. Might be worth dipping a toe on Lab for OB&S.
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
It feels bad to me. One of the most obvious of political errors: over-promising then under-delivering. Always do the opposite
Difficult, when his promises are so cheap, yet actually doing stuff is so expensive.
Slightly surprised a third (or as good as) were Labour.
If Starmer were smart enough, he'd issue an immediate, and public, order to the 9 Labour MPS involved to stop taking any freebies, or any income, from gambling companies.
I noticed on the Register the large number of MPs who got free tickets to prestige sporting events - not just from gambling companies. It should be stopped.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
There was (and is) a sub-group of JCVI who are opposed to child vaccination and boosters on the grounds that they think the vaccinations should go to the developing world. There is also a sub-group that doesn't want child vaccination on the basis that the benefit to the child, themselves, isn't big enough.
Not sure how these subgroups overlap - but they probably do.
The issue was the JCVI was trying for unanimity in their decisions.
There would be an overlap there, I'd have thought. AIRI, they didn't recommend against, they kind of sat on the fence and said it's up to govt, didn't they?
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Hang on: do you mean that schools sending pupils to the UK are paying their teachers to go? I normally end up out of pocket after the trips I’ve done.
Your paid a basic aren't you? If you accompany the children you will be working not touristing. Same goes for the employees of the school trip company that the schools tend to contract out to these days. They are all workers and have lost the right to work in the EU without a visa - which they either cannot get or because it is too much bloody hassle/costly.
I’ve done trips to some places I don’t think were in the EU, like Mongolia, and there were no problems with anything more than a basic visa.
I don’t get paid to go, and most trips I’ve been on have been holidays/weekends.
But if you aren'tr working, you aren't covered by the school's insurance, are you? Or are you? I do hope so.
What does that even mean? Hospitals should refuse entry to taxis? From what we've heard, a greater problem for hospitals is gang warfare in A&E. This new advice seems pointless. We must say something, this is something. (Note say rather than do.) Based on the video, some training on how to work a fire extinguisher might come in handy.
Exceptional stuff from Labour. Big poll lead? Time to send respects and condolences to the family of a suicide bomber who tried to attack a rememberance sunday service.
When I saw this earlier, I thought it was a joke about the ineptness of Labour and how they'd mess things up. But it actually happened!
Exceptional stuff from Labour. Big poll lead? Time to send respects and condolences to the family of a suicide bomber who tried to attack a rememberance sunday service.
When I saw this earlier, I thought it was a joke about the ineptness of Labour and how they'd mess things up. But it actually happened!
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
Then she's an idiot (in this case). Despite doing great work on the vax
They weren't just idiotic they were wrong. Imagine if we HAD given away all those doses, and we were unable to do the booster campaign and jab the kids? How would they be feeling now? What would the British public think of them?
These wanker do-gooders should be grateful they were eventually over-ruled by politicians, or they might now be in hiding
That's an irrational and jaundiced way of putting it.
This is a global pandemic and we have rich nations giving 3rd 'top up' jabs to their adult populations and vaccinating kids before some poorer countries have even been able to give the basic 1st jab protection to their most vulnerables.
It's a perfectly respectable opinion - morally and pragmatically - to say that's wrong.
To call those holding such an opinion 'wanker do-gooders' is like if I were to call you a 'selfish prick who can't see beyond the end of his nose' for holding the opposite opinion.
Which I'd never do.
It would be interesting to see some polling on this. I imagine the British people agree with me rather than you by about 8 to 1.
The delay in administering boosters and child jabs has almost certainly cost hundreds if not thousands of UK lives, and all to massage the consciences of these fools
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
"A proposed Northern Powerhouse route from Leeds to Manchester is now expected to be made up of some new line, but it will mostly consist of upgrades to the existing track.
The new track on the route will not allow high-speed rail travel.
The route is not expected to go via Bradford, a key request of many in the city and surrounding area."
In other words we might get the very worst bits bypassed but mostly its going to be easing of curves and some grade separation. Q Can we at least have electric trains for fast acceleration and tilt for the curves? A No
Vote Conservative all you red wallers! Even the "Trams for Leeds" bribe spun hard in the Sunday Times is now "The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds."
This feels like a clusterfuck, and possibly worse than Patergate, long term
No Northern Powerhouse route is utterly stupid
For those people not from up north its hard to stress just how shagged transport between Lancashire and Yorkshire is. On the roads you have the M62 as the only decent route across, hence massive congestion hotspots at either end and armageddon if weather / accidents bring the hills bit to a stand.
And the trains? Its awfully slow between Manc and Leeds / Sheffield with "expresses" having to share the same tracks as slow trains that stop at lots of stations on twisty and hilly routes.
Having finally been promised the transformative "built it and they will come" approach, to pull out now will not be good for the Tories. Especially as - and its absurd to have to post this - they will try and claim they never offered "it" and are building "it" simultaneously.
It feels bad to me. One of the most obvious of political errors: over-promising then under-delivering. Always do the opposite
It’s not underdelivering, it’s taking the absolute piss.
I can't access that piece but it will be because the operators cannot get work permits for those who accompany the children.
In the ski tourism industry it is career-ending for ski instructors. I know one who worked in Verbier every winter but now cannot due to Brexit.
It is a little more encouraging for chalet-staff. The chalet companies, who usually employ young Brits doing a gap year, are having to advertise positions locally (i.e. in France) for EU staff first before offering jobs to the British. Then they apply for a work permit for them, which enables them to get a visa from the French Embassy.
The end result is usually OK because French locals whilst happy to be a chalet cook do not want to do the other work particular to chalet girls/boys (e.g. sorting out punters' problems and cleaning the loos).
Hang on: do you mean that schools sending pupils to the UK are paying their teachers to go? I normally end up out of pocket after the trips I’ve done.
Your paid a basic aren't you? If you accompany the children you will be working not touristing. Same goes for the employees of the school trip company that the schools tend to contract out to these days. They are all workers and have lost the right to work in the EU without a visa - which they either cannot get or because it is too much bloody hassle/costly.
I’ve done trips to some places I don’t think were in the EU, like Mongolia, and there were no problems with anything more than a basic visa.
I don’t get paid to go, and most trips I’ve been on have been holidays/weekends.
Yeah, I had a sixth form school trip to Washington D.C, and everyone had to have a passport and an ESTA (this was just over 10 years ago, showing my age here). The teacher organised everyone getting their ESTA on one weekday evening in the sixth form library and everything was sorted.
Forgive me for not being all that sympathetic. If schools in some EU nations are only willing to travel on group passports or national ID cards then that's a pretty insular world view.
Other non-EEA/EFTA/Schengen countries would likely treat those schools the same as the UK treats them, so why is it that the UK is expected to move on this?
Having said that, I do think that there should be a visa waiver for educational purposes. We shouldn't be making it more difficult for refugee children who have ended up in an EU country to visit than the actual nationals there.
It is not an insular view, just the practicalities. Many Euro-pupils don't have passports because they are not needed for travel round Europe. Now that passports are needed to come to Britain, it is simpler to go to a different country than to ask two dozen families to acquire passports, and possibly visas. Perhaps HMG can come up with an exception for school trips.
For all those PBers that backed/defended Kwasi's comments.
BEIS Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng apologizes to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for his media comments about her, and says he 'should have chosen ... words more carefully' as he 'did not mean to express doubt about your ability to discharge your role'.Letter on gov uk
Happened to me at University. They cleared out all my flat mates CD collections' but left mine untouched despite kicking on the door to my bedroom to get access.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
Then she's an idiot (in this case). Despite doing great work on the vax
They weren't just idiotic they were wrong. Imagine if we HAD given away all those doses, and we were unable to do the booster campaign and jab the kids? How would they be feeling now? What would the British public think of them?
These wanker do-gooders should be grateful they were eventually over-ruled by politicians, or they might now be in hiding
That's an irrational and jaundiced way of putting it.
This is a global pandemic and we have rich nations giving 3rd 'top up' jabs to their adult populations and vaccinating kids before some poorer countries have even been able to give the basic 1st jab protection to their most vulnerables.
It's a perfectly respectable opinion - morally and pragmatically - to say that's wrong.
To call those holding such an opinion 'wanker do-gooders' is like if I were to call you a 'selfish prick who can't see beyond the end of his nose' for holding the opposite opinion.
Which I'd never do.
You may not agree with it - indeed I am sure you don't - but the first duty of any Government is to look after its own citizens. This can and does lead to some moral dilemmas but that is the way of the world.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
There was (and is) a sub-group of JCVI who are opposed to child vaccination and boosters on the grounds that they think the vaccinations should go to the developing world. There is also a sub-group that doesn't want child vaccination on the basis that the benefit to the child, themselves, isn't big enough.
Not sure how these subgroups overlap - but they probably do.
The issue was the JCVI was trying for unanimity in their decisions.
There would be an overlap there, I'd have thought. AIRI, they didn't recommend against, they kind of sat on the fence and said it's up to govt, didn't they?
That was because the sub-groups opposed to the child vaccinations and boosters effectively "hung the jury" - because JCVI wanted unanimity, the minority held up the publication of a report, by perpetually asking for more data.
I have been told that the relevant Minster finally told them to either produce a report. Or be disbanded.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
Then she's an idiot (in this case). Despite doing great work on the vax
They weren't just idiotic they were wrong. Imagine if we HAD given away all those doses, and we were unable to do the booster campaign and jab the kids? How would they be feeling now? What would the British public think of them?
These wanker do-gooders should be grateful they were eventually over-ruled by politicians, or they might now be in hiding
That's an irrational and jaundiced way of putting it.
This is a global pandemic and we have rich nations giving 3rd 'top up' jabs to their adult populations and vaccinating kids before some poorer countries have even been able to give the basic 1st jab protection to their most vulnerables.
It's a perfectly respectable opinion - morally and pragmatically - to say that's wrong.
To call those holding such an opinion 'wanker do-gooders' is like if I were to call you a 'selfish prick who can't see beyond the end of his nose' for holding the opposite opinion.
Which I'd never do.
It would be interesting to see some polling on this. I imagine the British people agree with me rather than you by about 8 to 1.
The delay in administering boosters and child jabs has almost certainly cost hundreds if not thousands of UK lives, and all to massage the consciences of these fools
I think it would be at least 8 to 1, yes.
I'm not taking issue with your opinion - that we shouldn't think about poorer countries until we're completely out of the woods ourselves - what I'm taking issue with is the description of people in disagreement as fools and wankers and bean peasants who hold the view they say they hold purely in order to 'feel good about themselves' rather than because they genuinely think it makes moral and practical sense.
This is something I've noticed as a general point. That people who don't care about something like to believe that those who say they DO care don't really. And why do they wish to believe this? Well imo it's our old friend - it's so as to 'feel good about themselves', or rather 'less bad'.
For all those PBers that backed/defended Kwasi's comments.
BEIS Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng apologizes to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for his media comments about her, and says he 'should have chosen ... words more carefully' as he 'did not mean to express doubt about your ability to discharge your role'.Letter on gov uk
Yes he did mean to express doubt about her ability to discharge her role, that's what the words he said meant unambiguously. What else could he possibly have meant? I note he does not clear that up, because he cannot.
What a weaselly, cowardly, evasive letter. He'd have done better not to write it at all and stonewall it out than put out such tosh, full of how his remarks were 'interpreted' and given 'impression' of having fallen short of high standards. Sorry I trashed you in public
For all those PBers that backed/defended Kwasi's comments.
BEIS Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng apologizes to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for his media comments about her, and says he 'should have chosen ... words more carefully' as he 'did not mean to express doubt about your ability to discharge your role'.Letter on gov uk
Yes he did mean to express doubt about her ability to discharge her role, that's what the words he said meant unambigously. What else could he possibly have meant? I note he does not clear that up.
What a weaselly, cowardly, evasive letter. He'd have done better not to write it at all and stonewall it out that put out such tosh, full of how his remarks were 'interpreted' and given 'impression' of having fallen short of high standards.
"The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves 27 stations across the Rhodope mountain range. Built in the first half of the 20th century, the railway has a track with a width of 760 millimeters, or around 30 inches, which is roughly half the width of a standard railroad track. (The narrow gauge is good for climbing steep terrain and allows for tighter curves, lighter rail and smaller tunnels — all of which are critical to its route through the mountains.)"
You can get 620 (BF) on San Marino to win against England this evening!
Probably worth placing a tiny bet on SM, just in case they briefly go ahead like they did in the 1990s. Punters would overreact if that happened, and you could cash out.
Case rise seems to have levelled off entirely, most ages and the total pointing slightly down now, so the increases still coming through the daily totals are just as we're comparing to a lower level last week rather than still in the process of rising.
OK, that's good news. Does look like we are cresting a wave rather than riding a surge. A clear booster effect there, as well
There really is no need to panic. The time to panic would be if we saw over 100% WoW rises in cases followed by 60-70% rises in hospitalisations. If that happens then it would likely be due to a vaccine evading variant, there's simply too much vaccine+natural immunity in the UK. I know some are keen to dismiss the idea that reopening fully from July was the right decision because they don't like the politicians who did it and do like the politicians in other countries who called us all crazy but those 7.7m infections we've had to date vs not even 20% of that level in other countries is making a huge difference.
I've done some quick maths on it and I think without boosters we're currently sitting at population immunity of about 82%. With boosters we could be getting to about 87%, with Delta it's thought that we need to hit population immunity of about 90-93% to get to herd immunity. The government decision to open up over 40s boosters and the likely opening of over 18s boosters is to make that happen. We would still need another 9m infections to reach that with natural immunity alone, even with VE against death still looking pretty good that still adds up to a lot of deaths and a lot of people using the NHS that could be very easily prevented. 9m infections at the current rates would take about 4 months.
V helpful, ta
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
Those idiot bean peasants include the woman who made the vaccine.
Then she's an idiot (in this case). Despite doing great work on the vax
They weren't just idiotic they were wrong. Imagine if we HAD given away all those doses, and we were unable to do the booster campaign and jab the kids? How would they be feeling now? What would the British public think of them?
These wanker do-gooders should be grateful they were eventually over-ruled by politicians, or they might now be in hiding
That's an irrational and jaundiced way of putting it.
This is a global pandemic and we have rich nations giving 3rd 'top up' jabs to their adult populations and vaccinating kids before some poorer countries have even been able to give the basic 1st jab protection to their most vulnerables.
It's a perfectly respectable opinion - morally and pragmatically - to say that's wrong.
To call those holding such an opinion 'wanker do-gooders' is like if I were to call you a 'selfish prick who can't see beyond the end of his nose' for holding the opposite opinion.
Which I'd never do.
It would be interesting to see some polling on this. I imagine the British people agree with me rather than you by about 8 to 1.
The delay in administering boosters and child jabs has almost certainly cost hundreds if not thousands of UK lives, and all to massage the consciences of these fools
I think it would be at least 8 to 1, yes.
I'm not taking issue with your opinion - that we shouldn't think about poorer countries until we're completely out of the woods ourselves - what I'm taking issue with is the description of people in disagreement as fools and wankers and bean peasants who hold the view they say they hold purely in order to 'feel good about themselves' rather than because they genuinely think it makes moral and practical sense.
This is something I've noticed as a general point. That people who don't care about something like to believe that those who say they DO care don't really. And why is this? Well imo it's our old friend - it's so as to 'feel good about themselves', or rather 'less bad'.
No, I just think in this case they are vain, foolish and myopic. "Idiot" is a shorthand for that
No more than that, tho. I wouldn't sling 'em in jail
The bigger point is that the government has to put these people back in their boxes. They should not be near huge decisions like this, inflicting their insane political viewpoints on us. The boffins are there, in this case, to advise the ministers if vaccines are safe. That's it. After that they should shut up
For all those PBers that backed/defended Kwasi's comments.
BEIS Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng apologizes to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for his media comments about her, and says he 'should have chosen ... words more carefully' as he 'did not mean to express doubt about your ability to discharge your role'.Letter on gov uk
James Johnson, Mrs May's pollster (on R4PM) does not believe any of this will cut through. In the medium term Starmer's relative weakness to Johnson's strength, and the Conservatives economic and Covid competence perception to Labour's perceived incompetence will shine through.
Although was this the pollster that pulled the trigger for Mrs May's GE in 2017? A genuine question.
You can get 620 (BF) on San Marino to win against England this evening!
Oh god, can you imagine. I still remember the game years ago v San Marino when we conceded in the 1st minute and the immortal Motson commentary -
"And it's England nil, San Marino one!"
Didn’t we win 7-1 in the end?
I think it took about half an hour for us to equalise though. One of the more memorable football games.
We equalised in the 22nd minute, 22 torturous minutes of my international football life, only outdone by the 75 odd minutes between Iceland scoring their second goal against us in 2016 and the full time whistle.
Comments
""He blamed the new UK rules for non EU citizens, which have hit the many Turkish, Russian and refugee children in German schools who used to be able to travel on the EU “list of travellers” scheme, which the UK left as a result of Brexit. “If you need to pay for a passport or a visa on top of the costs of the trip, and the teacher has to organise everything, it is a lot of supervision,” he said.""
The guesstimate is that since COVID is less severe in children, the percentages of asymptomatic cases are higher. So without mass surveillance testing (LFT), more cases might not be tracked.
But I haven't seen any peer reviewed science on that one.
We are told too often that Effect X is due to Covid not Brexit. If Brexit has had no effect on anything then what was the bloody point?
This is going to cost the Tories a lot in the marginals in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/book-coronavirus-vaccination/book-or-manage-a-booster-dose-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine/
Edit: Be ready to book on Sunday evening!
As I have said repeatedly, the red wall voted Brexit and then Tory because they are sick of decades of decline. Having finally been offered the Promised Land they aren't going to be fobbed off patronised or lied to.
I don’t get paid to go, and most trips I’ve been on have been holidays/weekends.
I'm still fucking furious that they delayed the vax for kids and then the boosters, when it was obvious they were needed and beneficial. I read a report a couple of days ago - can't recall where, perhaps Times or Groaniad - that confirmed your allegation. One big reason they delayed these jabs is because of idiot bien pensant doctors who wanted to give all our shots to poor countries
Yes, let thousands of Britons die or get ill, and crash the UK health system, so YOU can feel good about yourself. Grr
https://order-order.com/2021/11/15/jon-ashworth-sends-condolences-to-the-family-of-the-liverpool-taxi-passenger/
The same is true of the trans-Pennine line but instead it will be closed most weekends to remind people about Boris's levelling up false promises.
Officers have carried out a controlled explosion at Sefton Park
I suspect he has exhausted their patience.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-50573178
Broken, sleazy, corrupt LABOUR in the slide?
You can’t level up on a shoestring, sadly.
Rishi and the Treasury have foiled any serious attempt to do so (as the Treasury have been doing pretty much forever).
U.K.’s failure to do infrastructure seriously on a densely populated island explains a lot of the productivity gap with EU peer nations.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stourbridge+Junction,+Stourbridge+DY8+1NH/stourbridge+town/@52.4517766,-2.1426018,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x4870919f758ed3ff:0xaa66f9b871004242!2m2!1d-2.134444!2d52.4476622!1m5!1m1!1s0x487091a4ee8c606d:0xa545ef1a6da58f75!2m2!1d-2.1418358!2d52.4556444
Not sure how these subgroups overlap - but they probably do.
The issue was the JCVI was trying for unanimity in their decisions.
They weren't just idiotic they were wrong. Imagine if we HAD given away all those doses, and we were unable to do the booster campaign and jab the kids? How would they be feeling now? What would the British public think of them?
These wanker do-gooders should be grateful they were eventually over-ruled by politicians, or they might now be in hiding
or ‘LABOUR LEAD CUT IN HALF’!
Slightly surprised a third (or as good as) were Labour.
Remember, Peter Coates is a big supporter of the Labour Party:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Coates#Political_activity
Unless the graph is consistently cases reported within 2 days of sample?
Forgive me for not being all that sympathetic. If schools in some EU nations are only willing to travel on group passports or national ID cards then that's a pretty insular world view.
Other non-EEA/EFTA/Schengen countries would likely treat those schools the same as the UK treats them, so why is it that the UK is expected to move on this?
Having said that, I do think that there should be a visa waiver for educational purposes. We shouldn't be making it more difficult for refugee children who have ended up in an EU country to visit than the actual nationals there.
The Bexley by-election candidate says he might just keep his job as a Mayfair-based fund manager if he gets elected because, don't worry, he's not a "career politician"
https://twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1460302579427119109
This is a global pandemic and we have rich nations giving 3rd 'top up' jabs to their adult populations and vaccinating kids before some poorer countries have even been able to give the basic 1st jab protection to their most vulnerables.
It's a perfectly respectable opinion - morally and pragmatically - to say that's wrong.
To call those holding such an opinion 'wanker do-gooders' is like if I were to call you a 'selfish prick who can't see beyond the end of his nose' for holding the opposite opinion.
Which I'd never do.
£2 it is...
Exclusive: NHS England to send guidance to all trusts as terror threat level in country upgraded to ‘severe’
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/15/nhs-bosses-advise-all-hospitals-review-security-after-liverpool-blast
"And it's England nil, San Marino one!"
I noticed on the Register the large number of MPs who got free tickets to prestige sporting events - not just from gambling companies. It should be stopped.
It's a bit of fun.
The delay in administering boosters and child jabs has almost certainly cost hundreds if not thousands of UK lives, and all to massage the consciences of these fools
BEIS Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng apologizes to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for his media comments about her, and says he 'should have chosen ... words more carefully' as he 'did not mean to express doubt about your ability to discharge your role'.Letter on gov uk
https://twitter.com/JakubKrupa/status/1460307554593091588
Still didn't qualify for the 1994 world cup.
That bloody wanker that was the German referee in the Netherlands v England match, I hated him as much as I do Max Verstappen.
I have been told that the relevant Minster finally told them to either produce a report. Or be disbanded.
I'm not taking issue with your opinion - that we shouldn't think about poorer countries until we're completely out of the woods ourselves - what I'm taking issue with is the description of people in disagreement as fools and wankers and bean peasants who hold the view they say they hold purely in order to 'feel good about themselves' rather than because they genuinely think it makes moral and practical sense.
This is something I've noticed as a general point. That people who don't care about something like to believe that those who say they DO care don't really. And why do they wish to believe this? Well imo it's our old friend - it's so as to 'feel good about themselves', or rather 'less bad'.
What a weaselly, cowardly, evasive letter. He'd have done better not to write it at all and stonewall it out than put out such tosh, full of how his remarks were 'interpreted' and given 'impression' of having fallen short of high standards. Sorry I trashed you in public Against San Marino scoring 7 does not make up for conceding 1.
Inside the Struggle to Save Bulgaria’s Last Narrow-Gauge Railroad
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/travel/bulgaria-narrow-gauge-railway.html
"The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves 27 stations across the Rhodope mountain range. Built in the first half of the 20th century, the railway has a track with a width of 760 millimeters, or around 30 inches, which is roughly half the width of a standard railroad track. (The narrow gauge is good for climbing steep terrain and allows for tighter curves, lighter rail and smaller tunnels — all of which are critical to its route through the mountains.)"
Then he went on to score the opening goal in that match.
No more than that, tho. I wouldn't sling 'em in jail
The bigger point is that the government has to put these people back in their boxes. They should not be near huge decisions like this, inflicting their insane political viewpoints on us. The boffins are there, in this case, to advise the ministers if vaccines are safe. That's it. After that they should shut up
Macron tells Putin France is ready to defend Ukraine's 'territorial integrity'
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1460309423373565956
Although was this the pollster that pulled the trigger for Mrs May's GE in 2017? A genuine question.