One policy would win the Tories the next GE very easily indeed. A ref on you know what..
At heart, I think Boris is more a liberal than a populist. Wasn’t there a quote from him early on in his journalism career where, when asked what he truly believed, his only answer was that he was against the death penalty?
Boris's distinctive USP is that he is in fact a liberal, with libertarian instincts, combined with a populist style.
Brexit is a liberal and libertarian project, though liberals have so forgotten their roots that many are in denial about it (see the Economist passim) and well suited to Boris. Dealing with a pandemic is something that comes more naturally to soviet style Labour people who love telling others what to do, and the illiberal Tory majority who just love banning things; it will never come naturally to Boris, for whom rules are invariably an interesting challenge.
His populism arises out of the fact that he is a performer. Putting together his character and the circumstances of Brexit and the pandemic, which are together an overwhelming mass of contradictory detail, regulation and fudge, has the makings of Fawlty Towers. It is a tribute to him, and us, that we are still standing.
If Brexit is a liberal project, that wasn't reflected in who voted for it, and against it, or indeed the prospectus that got it over the line (basically, more immigration restrictions and more spending on state provided healthcare). Also, this whole Boris hates petty rules thing needs putting to bed. He banned drinking booze on the tube. You don't get much more nanny state than that.
It is a liberal project in these respects: migration is on the basis of equality of opportunity and no longer discriminates against, for example, my Tanzanian friend now back in the UK, in favour of any random EU citizen.
It is liberal in allowing us by a democratic process to undo the EU protectionism which discriminates against African farmers and food processors.
It is liberal in not compelling us to tax and tariff things against our will.
It is liberal in restoring the common law tradition as the summa lex, and declining to accept a jurisdiction we have not elected or chosen to legislate and adjudicate for us.
(Yes, it's a miracle it got done. UK opinion always veers towards the anti liberal position.)
That's just a few examples. As to banning alcohol on the tube, one might wish to suggest that a liberal society by and large protects lone women, children and the frail elderly from being forced to share a small enclosed inescapable moving unpoliced space with a bunch of drunks.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
Indeed. But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised for the policy to become sufficiently popular in parts of Europe that it returns over the coming decades. Given what I saw, that’s at least as likely as those other places abolishing it.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
13th December has been pencilled in as the date for the boosters programme to be ramped up...On this timetable, it looks unlikely that many under-40s will be able to get a booster before the new year.
Less Dunkirk spirit, more we will get to you after Christmas holidays.
Don't forget that even without vaccines U40 only very rarely had poor outcomes with covid.
I (46) tried to book a booster yesterday. Nothing available before 29th Dec. Not vastly bothered because I'm assuming I'm brim full of antibodies after getting it in Oct. But still.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Please list some. I would love to know some that are not as easy to shoot down as a very large floating (Col.) blimp.
It's small potatoes now, but these could be big things. UVdL discussing mandatory vaccinaction in the EU - we can differ.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
The 90+ often have medical conditions that make vaccines inadvisable. They have shown lower take up than younger groups for this reason, for the other shots...
In Bexley, there was no sign of a significant ideological shift amongst the electorate. As I posted last night, the right-of-centre vote was 60.6% compared to 64.5% at the last election.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
This seems quite a lazy and off base insult to both PT and NF.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
It's far from clear that Jutes were a real thing. Poorly attested in the histories, no form modern consensus on where they might have been from.
In Bexley, there was no sign of a significant ideological shift amongst the electorate. As I posted last night, the right-of-centre vote was 60.6% compared to 64.5% at the last election.
You're probably right, but I'd temper that conclusion by pointing out that only a third of the electorate voted. Apathy did a lot better than the right-of-centre vote.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
By the way, for the record, I have never said I "had no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME" you lying little toad. I thought it obnoxious.
We know you hated Mrs May. Is it really a misogyny thing? If so it would go with the Brexit Party voting record very well.
The 90+ often have medical conditions that make vaccines inadvisable. They have shown lower take up than younger groups for this reason, for the other shots...
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
It's far from clear that Jutes were a real thing. Poorly attested in the histories, no form modern consensus on where they might have been from.
Weren’t they the tribes living in Jutland in Denmark?!
• Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) can be identified through genotyping or sequencing – as of 30 November 2021, there are 22 confirmed cases of Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) identified through sequencing or genotyping in England; none of the cases of are known to have been hospitalised or died • of the 22 confirmed cases, there are 12 cases who have received at least 2 doses of vaccine more than 14 days ago, 2 cases more than 28 days post first dose, 6 unvaccinated cases, and 2 with no available information • the UKHSA genomic case definition for Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) is included and has been published for use at GitHub • Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) can be detected through the current genotyping panel in use in England – the current profile requires K417N must be present, and P681R, E484K, and K417T must not be present; additional targets for Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) are being validated the Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) global phylogeny shows little diversity which is compatible with a recent emergence and rapid spread – due to mixed sequence quality, requiring the masking of informative sites from the alignment, the phylogeny is not suitable for detailed cluster analysis, however it supports the epidemiological finding that there have been a number of separate introductions into England • Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) has a deletion at position 69/70 of the spike protein which allows it to be tracked through S gene target failure (SGTF) in some polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. SGTF is also observed in a very small fraction of test results from lineages lacking this deletion, including the Delta lineage and sub-lineages. The proportion of test results with SGTF has been low over the past 90 days, but in the past week has increased. The logistic growth rate of SGTF has fluctuated between approximately -50% and +50% over the past 90 days but in the past week has climbed to +141%. This finding indicates that SGTF is growing faster, and can be considered a strong early signal. However, the number cannot be interpreted as a change in transmissibility or an increase in the absolute number of cases of the variant. • structural modelling shared by the University of Oxford indicates that the mutations present in Omicron are highly likely to affect the binding of natural and therapeutic antibodies, and to enhance binding to human Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) to an extent greater than that seen in other variants to date. (Data not included; will be linked from here once available) • there is very little evidence of Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) in wastewater surveillance up to 21 November 2021; more recent data is being analysed
In Bexley, there was no sign of a significant ideological shift amongst the electorate. As I posted last night, the right-of-centre vote was 60.6% compared to 64.5% at the last election.
You're probably right, but I'd temper that conclusion by pointing out that only a third of the electorate voted. Apathy did a lot better than the right-of-centre vote.
I visited the constituency on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was the first time I've ever been to a by-election where there was no sign whatsoever of an election taking place. No banners, signs, posters, etc. I didn't see any electioneering either.
The 90+ often have medical conditions that make vaccines inadvisable. They have shown lower take up than younger groups for this reason, for the other shots...
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
It's far from clear that Jutes were a real thing. Poorly attested in the histories, no form modern consensus on where they might have been from.
Weren’t they the tribes living in Jutland in Denmark?!
That's certainly what some people think. But the historiography is highly disputed, extant written records and contemporary archaeology are incredibly poor.
The 90+ often have medical conditions that make vaccines inadvisable. They have shown lower take up than younger groups for this reason, for the other shots...
It’s not great in the cohort or two below either
70-90 is over 80% and still climbing....
In the slow part of the curve now. And as some of these stats indicate, time isn’t something we have a wealth of if the only useful protection is vaccinations.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
It's far from clear that Jutes were a real thing. Poorly attested in the histories, no form modern consensus on where they might have been from.
Weren’t they the tribes living in Jutland in Denmark?!
That's certainly what some people think. But the historiography is highly disputed, extant written records and contemporary archaeology are incredibly poor.
Hard to be dismissive though given they invented the jute-box.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
Is it legitimate for a State to kill an innocent man?
I have never met anyone pro the death penalty who can answer that question.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
This seems quite a lazy and off base insult to both PT and NF.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
Nigel Farage was described by founder of UKIP, Alan Sked as a racist. Farage is also very definitely far right. He is renowned for making nationalistic statements. he is also renowned for making anti-immigrant comments. He is well known for the hate mongering anti-immigrant poster in the Brexit campaign He has made admiring comments regarding Vladimir Putin, and is a known friend and obsequious admirer of Donald Trump. He did not challenge the lie that Trump had his election "stolen".
It is not lazy to suggest he is a crypto-fascist. It is also a fact (based on what he said) that Philip voted for him. I am right of centre, but I would never have voted for anyone with Farage's atrocious record of prejudice. Neither would I ever endorse Trump.
In Bexley, there was no sign of a significant ideological shift amongst the electorate. As I posted last night, the right-of-centre vote was 60.6% compared to 64.5% at the last election.
You're probably right, but I'd temper that conclusion by pointing out that only a third of the electorate voted. Apathy did a lot better than the right-of-centre vote.
I visited the constituency on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was the first time I've ever been to a by-election where there was no sign whatsoever of an election taking place. No banners, signs, posters, etc. I didn't see any electioneering either.
Neither Sir Keir nor Sadiq Khan visited, despite being fellow London MPs as well as their more senior roles - bit strange?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
There is no case to answer. The European Parliament election wasn't a proper election so casting a protest vote in that was entirely legitimate.
Your logic is utterly perverted in saying people can't vote for their own reasons or have protest votes.
Infinitely more serious than the shambolic European Parliament elections after we should have already left the European Parliament was the 2019 General Election.
Are you claiming that everyone like @MikeSmithson who voted for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party were deliberately endorsing what @MikeSmithson calls an antisemitic pensioner?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
This seems quite a lazy and off base insult to both PT and NF.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
Nigel Farage was described by founder of UKIP, Alan Sked as a racist. Farage is also very definitely far right. He is renowned for making nationalistic statements. he is also renowned for making anti-immigrant comments. He is well known for the hate mongering anti-immigrant poster in the Brexit campaign He has made admiring comments regarding Vladimir Putin, and is a known friend and obsequious admirer of Donald Trump. He did not challenge the lie that Trump had his election "stolen".
It is not lazy to suggest he is a crypto-fascist. It is also a fact (based on what he said) that Philip voted for him. I am right of centre, but I would never have voted for anyone with Farage's atrocious record of prejudice. Neither would I ever endorse Trump.
I can't stand Farage but he does not believe in dictatorial power or suppression of opposition. In fact he makes rather grand stands in defence of parliamentary sovereignty and free speech. His admiring comments of Putin were in one specific area and he then clarified he didn't like Putin overall and condemned his attacks on journalists.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Please list some. I would love to know some that are not as easy to shoot down as a very large floating (Col.) blimp.
It's small potatoes now, but these could be big things. UVdL discussing mandatory vaccinaction in the EU - we can differ.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
We could have taken our own path with vaccination if we had been part of EU ( I believe Hungary and Malta did). Farming subsidies? Better for whom? Definitely not the farmer and probably not the consumer
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
There is no case to answer. The European Parliament election wasn't a proper election so casting a protest vote in that was entirely legitimate.
Your logic is utterly perverted in saying people can't vote for their own reasons or have protest votes.
Infinitely more serious than the shambolic European Parliament elections after we should have already left the European Parliament was the 2019 General Election.
Are you claiming that everyone like @MikeSmithson who voted for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party were deliberately endorsing what @MikeSmithson calls an antisemitic pensioner?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
By the way, for the record, I have never said I "had no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME" you lying little toad. I thought it obnoxious.
We know you hated Mrs May. Is it really a misogyny thing? If so it would go with the Brexit Party voting record very well.
You're the lying little toad who lied and said I voted for Farage "knowingly and lovingly" when you knew that wasn't true.
So I'm guessing you knowingly and lovingly tell migrants to GO HOME. Your logic. If you don't like it, don't throw stones at others.
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
Is it legitimate for a State to kill an innocent man?
I have never met anyone pro the death penalty who can answer that question.
There's tory nutters who are up front about it. We tolerate a certain level of road deaths for the utility of driving at over 4 mph, we should also tolerate a reasonable number of false positives on the hanging front.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Hiding! One of the residual places where us originals held out!
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
There is no case to answer. The European Parliament election wasn't a proper election so casting a protest vote in that was entirely legitimate.
Your logic is utterly perverted in saying people can't vote for their own reasons or have protest votes.
Infinitely more serious than the shambolic European Parliament elections after we should have already left the European Parliament was the 2019 General Election.
Are you claiming that everyone like @MikeSmithson who voted for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party were deliberately endorsing what @MikeSmithson calls an antisemitic pensioner?
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
Is it legitimate for a State to kill an innocent man?
I have never met anyone pro the death penalty who can answer that question.
In times of war, it was quite common for the state of one country to kill innocent people of another country, and it was not against the Geneva Convention either.
BREAKING: South Africa reports 16,055 new coronavirus cases, up 468% from last week
Not particularly informative unless we know how serious the cases are, in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
Too early to tell. However, the thing is clearly growing extraordinarily fast - they're getting a 24.3% positivity rate, which means they must be missing lots and lots of cases, so it's probably even worse than the headline figure.
If we get anything like that even without Omicron being more able to escape the vaccines, it's going to be carnage in the NHS, unless we're lucky and it's a lot milder than delta.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Please list some. I would love to know some that are not as easy to shoot down as a very large floating (Col.) blimp.
It's small potatoes now, but these could be big things. UVdL discussing mandatory vaccinaction in the EU - we can differ.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
We could have taken our own path with vaccination if we had been part of EU ( I believe Hungary and Malta did). Farming subsidies? Better for whom? Definitely not the farmer and probably not the consumer
Next?
Only if we were prepared to use the Chinese and Russian vaccines, IIRC?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
As a beaker person, could I request that the Celts piss off too?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
As a beaker person, could I request that the Celts piss off too?
As someone who has been called a bit of a Neanderthal...
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
Is it legitimate for a State to kill an innocent man?
I have never met anyone pro the death penalty who can answer that question.
There's tory nutters who are up front about it. We tolerate a certain level of road deaths for the utility of driving at over 4 mph, we should also tolerate a reasonable number of false positives on the hanging front.
Ditto a number of failures in children's social services, I suppose.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
As a beaker person, could I request that the Celts piss off too?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
As a beaker person, could I request that the Celts piss off too?
No, that was a culture change. We brought better technology and merged.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Hiding! One of the residual places where us originals held out!
Celts were never wiped out or driven off. Linguistically, the Saxon settlers won out, but the Celts and Romano-British remained and adopted much of the incomers' culture.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
By the way, for the record, I have never said I "had no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME" you lying little toad. I thought it obnoxious.
We know you hated Mrs May. Is it really a misogyny thing? If so it would go with the Brexit Party voting record very well.
You're the lying little toad who lied and said I voted for Farage "knowingly and lovingly" when you knew that wasn't true.
So I'm guessing you knowingly and lovingly tell migrants to GO HOME. Your logic. If you don't like it, don't throw stones at others.
Diddums are you gammoning Philip?. Re your other post, I would agree, voting for a party where the leader is a known antisemite is something I wouldn't do. People need to think that when they vote for a party they do endorse the leader. You endorsed Farage. My instinct is that you perhaps admire Farage as much as he admires Trump, but you just don't want to admit it. Let's face it, you wouldn't have advanced your obsession with exiting the EU without Farage. You must really love him, and he loves you.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
Is it legitimate for a State to kill an innocent man?
I have never met anyone pro the death penalty who can answer that question.
There's tory nutters who are up front about it. We tolerate a certain level of road deaths for the utility of driving at over 4 mph, we should also tolerate a reasonable number of false positives on the hanging front.
...until you or someone you care about has the bad luck to be a false positive, eh?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
As a beaker person, could I request that the Celts piss off too?
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
Every so often an article like this appears in the mainstream media.
"Why we should close women's prisons and treat their crimes more fairly Mirko Bagaric Sentencing systems around the world should be radically reformed to start with the assumption that women should not be sent to prison for their crimes"
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
This seems quite a lazy and off base insult to both PT and NF.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
Nigel Farage was described by founder of UKIP, Alan Sked as a racist. Farage is also very definitely far right. He is renowned for making nationalistic statements. he is also renowned for making anti-immigrant comments. He is well known for the hate mongering anti-immigrant poster in the Brexit campaign He has made admiring comments regarding Vladimir Putin, and is a known friend and obsequious admirer of Donald Trump. He did not challenge the lie that Trump had his election "stolen".
It is not lazy to suggest he is a crypto-fascist. It is also a fact (based on what he said) that Philip voted for him. I am right of centre, but I would never have voted for anyone with Farage's atrocious record of prejudice. Neither would I ever endorse Trump.
I can't stand Farage but he does not believe in dictatorial power or suppression of opposition. In fact he makes rather grand stands in defence of parliamentary sovereignty and free speech. His admiring comments of Putin were in one specific area and he then clarified he didn't like Putin overall and condemned his attacks on journalists.
Did he ever condemn Trump's attack on the 'lame stream media'?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Please list some. I would love to know some that are not as easy to shoot down as a very large floating (Col.) blimp.
It's small potatoes now, but these could be big things. UVdL discussing mandatory vaccinaction in the EU - we can differ.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
We could have taken our own path with vaccination if we had been part of EU ( I believe Hungary and Malta did). Farming subsidies? Better for whom? Definitely not the farmer and probably not the consumer
Next?
I suspect it ends at this point, unless we can bottle "sovereignty". That's cheap as chips at the moment.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Go on - amaze me.
Yes, my ears are all open, waiting to be pleased.
I'm struggling under the flood of suggestions tbh.
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Once again: until we know about infection severity, it's meaningless. A variant with increased transmissibility and lower severity is desirable.
However, the fact that the scientists are essentially being forced to guess does nothing to stop all the journalists from picking up the worst case scenario and running with it.
Everybody who's in the slightest bit nervous about this disease - which is a very large fraction of the population - is going to be shitting themselves in self-imposed lockdown within the next few days at this rate. Now, that might actually help the non-nervous fraction of the population stay out of lockdown, by reducing the number of people left in circulation, but OTOH it's going to be a catastrophe for many businesses. At this rate, a second ruined Christmas is going to destroy large swathes of the hospitality trade and of the surviving physical shops.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
This seems quite a lazy and off base insult to both PT and NF.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
Nigel Farage was described by founder of UKIP, Alan Sked as a racist. Farage is also very definitely far right. He is renowned for making nationalistic statements. he is also renowned for making anti-immigrant comments. He is well known for the hate mongering anti-immigrant poster in the Brexit campaign He has made admiring comments regarding Vladimir Putin, and is a known friend and obsequious admirer of Donald Trump. He did not challenge the lie that Trump had his election "stolen".
It is not lazy to suggest he is a crypto-fascist. It is also a fact (based on what he said) that Philip voted for him. I am right of centre, but I would never have voted for anyone with Farage's atrocious record of prejudice. Neither would I ever endorse Trump.
I can't stand Farage but he does not believe in dictatorial power or suppression of opposition. In fact he makes rather grand stands in defence of parliamentary sovereignty and free speech. His admiring comments of Putin were in one specific area and he then clarified he didn't like Putin overall and condemned his attacks on journalists.
I refer to my other post regarding Farage's obsequious interview of Trump. Perhaps you don't think Trump would apply dictatorial power if he could? And if he could would Farage criticise him? No of course not.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
A passionate, broadly equal split on something does, I agree, often indicate a strong case on both sides that neither can see. I can go with that re Brexit and Capital Punishment. But not with Abortion, where the 'pro life banning abortion' argument is objectively inferior on every level and by every criteria to the 'female body autonomy' argument. As I told you only yesterday.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I am sure the more acute Angles will indeed be raising the point.
In Bexley, there was no sign of a significant ideological shift amongst the electorate. As I posted last night, the right-of-centre vote was 60.6% compared to 64.5% at the last election.
You're probably right, but I'd temper that conclusion by pointing out that only a third of the electorate voted. Apathy did a lot better than the right-of-centre vote.
I visited the constituency on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was the first time I've ever been to a by-election where there was no sign whatsoever of an election taking place. No banners, signs, posters, etc. I didn't see any electioneering either.
Neither Sir Keir nor Sadiq Khan visited, despite being fellow London MPs as well as their more senior roles - bit strange?
Seattle District 3 city council special recall election - Tuesday, December 7, 2021
Perhaps NOT a date that will live in infamy. Nevertheless a quite unique and highly interesting proceeding now ongoing: strong effort to remove Socialist Alternative (think Militant Tendency) city council member Kshama Sawant from office, on series of charges. (Note that in WA, unlike CA, recall charges must be judicially reviewed before reaching the ballot, so recalls are rarer.)
For those who know Seattle, District 3 consists or Capitol Hill just east (and up) from downtown, and similar areas filled with young & youngish singles, cosmopolitans, progressives, left-wokeists, etc. plus nearby high-rent residential areas dominated by somewhat older, more affluent homeowners, still liberal but notably more moderate about it.
Seattle Council District 3 total active registered voters = 77,220 ballots returned by 6pm Thur 12.02 = 25,223 (32.7%)
Deadline for returning ballots for recall is next Tuesday, either via drop box by 8pm deadline OR via mail and returned next day or postmarked on or before December 7.
So total number of ballots yet to be returned and counted? My guess is 50% to 55%, meaning that returns so far account for approximately three-fifths to two-thirds of final turnout.
Councilmember Sawant has for the last decade been THE stormy petrel of Seattle politics. After running aggressively but unsuccessfully for the legislature (versus the Democratic state house speaker) as an avowed socialist, she ran again, this time citywide for city council and unseated an incumbent. Mostly because voters wanted to send the message to the council as a whole that they (think we) were less than pleased with their performance.
Subsequently Seattle voted to switch from nine councilmembers elected at-large, to having just 2 at-large and 7 elected separately by districts. Which worked in Sawant's favor as she sought and won the District 3 seat, in the most progressive-voting part of a pretty progressive city.
In her last election in 2019, Sawant was on the ropes - but saved by massive spending AGAINST her by . . . wait for it . . . Amazon. Which swung swing voters in her favor, plus gave a spur to Sawant's own impressive grassroots organizing AND massive fundraising (mostly from out-of-town sources)
Conventional wisdom AND polling suggest that the higher the turnout, the more likely Sawant will survive the recall. My own feeling is that she will prevail yet again - but hang on to yer hat!
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
Indeed. But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised for the policy to become sufficiently popular in parts of Europe that it returns over the coming decades. Given what I saw, that’s at least as likely as those other places abolishing it.
If the death penalty returned, it would only be a matter of time before we execute an innocent man.
It's just inevitable that it will happen, and all the safeguards in the world won't stop it. There'll be a truly terrible crime, where everyone is up in arms, and the police are desperate to clear it, and someone will be convicted, and everyone will be 100% sure they are guilty.
And they won't be.
Following that, the death penalty will end up being repealed again.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
By the way, for the record, I have never said I "had no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME" you lying little toad. I thought it obnoxious.
We know you hated Mrs May. Is it really a misogyny thing? If so it would go with the Brexit Party voting record very well.
You're the lying little toad who lied and said I voted for Farage "knowingly and lovingly" when you knew that wasn't true.
So I'm guessing you knowingly and lovingly tell migrants to GO HOME. Your logic. If you don't like it, don't throw stones at others.
Diddums are you gammoning Philip?. Re your other post, I would agree, voting for a party where the leader is a known antisemite is something I wouldn't do. People need to think that when they vote for a party they do endorse the leader. You endorsed Farage. My instinct is that you perhaps admire Farage as much as he admires Trump, but you just don't want to admit it. Let's face it, you wouldn't have advanced your obsession with exiting the EU without Farage. You must really love him, and he loves you.
But I never voted for Farage.
I voted against the racist who tells migrants to GO HOME that was ruining the country.
And in a two for the price of one I voted for Farage to be kicked out of the European Parliament.
Farage has no power and no elected position as a result of my vote.
If I had a vote to kick Corbyn out of Westminster in the same way I was able to kick Farage out of the European Parliament I'd gladly take it
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
This seems quite a lazy and off base insult to both PT and NF.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
Nigel Farage was described by founder of UKIP, Alan Sked as a racist. Farage is also very definitely far right. He is renowned for making nationalistic statements. he is also renowned for making anti-immigrant comments. He is well known for the hate mongering anti-immigrant poster in the Brexit campaign He has made admiring comments regarding Vladimir Putin, and is a known friend and obsequious admirer of Donald Trump. He did not challenge the lie that Trump had his election "stolen".
It is not lazy to suggest he is a crypto-fascist. It is also a fact (based on what he said) that Philip voted for him. I am right of centre, but I would never have voted for anyone with Farage's atrocious record of prejudice. Neither would I ever endorse Trump.
I can't stand Farage but he does not believe in dictatorial power or suppression of opposition. In fact he makes rather grand stands in defence of parliamentary sovereignty and free speech. His admiring comments of Putin were in one specific area and he then clarified he didn't like Putin overall and condemned his attacks on journalists.
Did he ever condemn Trump's attack on the 'lame stream media'?
Talking of the kind of people Farage likes to pal up with, this extended article from a couple of weeks ago about the various democracy-subverters Trump is installing in key electoral positions up and down America is one of the most chilling things I've ever read. It looks as if Biden needs to take some kind of federal action against it and add new safeguards before it's too late.
Freedoms are being suppressed around the world, and it is very largely from the “right”.
Farage is a knowing and willing participant in this populist-authoritarianism, as can be seen from his “did he just say that?” comments about immigration and his continued love affair with the anti-democratic and failed putschist, Donald Trump.
Here’s another horrible example, from the Guardian today
Poland is planning to introduce a centralised register of pregnancies that would oblige doctors to report all pregnancies and miscarriages to the government.
This is the battle of our times, and it’s incumbent on any politically aware person to pick a side.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I am sure the more acute Angles will indeed be raising the point.
Father is jailed for 21 years and his partner for a minimum of 29 years over the torture and killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59522243
How minimum is minimum? I know lots of things get said about our criminal justice system but what is the real situation. I'm more concerned she never be placed in a role of care ever again.
"For some serious violent or sexual offences where the sentence is 7 years or more the offender will be released at the two-thirds point." 29 year sentence: 19 yrs 4 months.
She's 32 now so she'll be at least 51 when released, which is heavily odds against to have another child thankfully.
Should have been a whole life tariff.
If we had it, should have been the death penalty. Thankfully we don't have it, but should be a whole life tariff.
Cases like this, and the Everard murder make me wonder about the death penalty. If the only argument against it is wrongful convictions then cases like this are surely certain enough? Why should these people be allowed another minute of life?
I have some sympathy with that view, in that I share your revulsion at the crime. Wrongful conviction has been the mainstay argument against the death penalty, but there are others.
1. I do not want the State to have the power of life and death over me.
2. Juries will be less willing to convict if they think a death sentence might be imposed. In this case they might only have been willing to convict her for manslaughter rather than murder, and her sentence would then have been much lighter.
On point 2, that is me. I would not under any circumstances convict if death was the penalty. I could not live with the knowledge that my decision led to the death of another person. Especially if it later turned out the the conviction was unsafe. (And yes, i know there is a counter argument, what happens if they are set free and kill again. But that's not my decision).
There's an additional complication here too. They would have to screen out jurors like you and me in a trial where the death penalty is possible. Then you are no longer judged by a jury of your peers, but by a jury of those in favour of the death penalty, which creates all kinds of biases in the administration of justice.
And thinking about it, that opens up a whole can of worms, what other views are unacceptable for a juror? Gender, religion, race...
Anyway, I would just give the required answer.
Presumably you would give the true answer when questioned under oath, or risk going to jail for perjury...
And how would you ensure that the jury for the perjury trial did not contain people who didn't believe in the death penalty? (You would also need to prosecute those people who claimed not to believe in the death penalty so as to avoid the extraordinary inconvenience of being a juror in a long trial.)
There are numerous democracies that have both trial by jury and the death penalty and make it work. But I agree that it’s not practical to implement such a change with only a 52-48 majority. What was striking to me when living in Asia was that even when talking to otherwise highly liberal internationalised Gen X-ers and Millennials, it was almost impossible to find anyone who didn’t full throatedly support the death penalty for at least some crimes.
Not in our corner of the world though, Europe.
The death penalty is like abortion and Brexit; there is a formidable case for both sides of the argument and a large majority of people are incapable of seeing the strength of the side they don't take - a truth frequently demonstrated on PB.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
Is it legitimate for a State to kill an innocent man?
I have never met anyone pro the death penalty who can answer that question.
The US state kills innocent people all the time through the use of drone strikes.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I am sure the more acute Angles will indeed be raising the point.
Surely the Right Angles will be be the ones concerned?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
As a beaker person, could I request that the Celts piss off too?
Freedoms are being suppressed around the world, and it is very largely from the “right”.
Farage is a knowing and willing participant in this populist-authoritarianism, as can be seen from his “did he just say that?” comments about immigration and his continued love affair with the anti-democratic and failed putschist, Donald Trump.
Here’s another horrible example, from the Guardian today
Poland is planning to introduce a centralised register of pregnancies that would oblige doctors to report all pregnancies and miscarriages to the government.
This is the battle of our times, and it’s incumbent on any politically aware person to pick a side.
I'll go pro-life then.
(Yes, I'm back. Fridays were always my fav day on PB)
Not sure why we should allow new borns to have their skulls cracked by a doc.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I am sure the more acute Angles will indeed be raising the point.
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Once again: until we know about infection severity, it's meaningless. A variant with increased transmissibility and lower severity is desirable.
However, the fact that the scientists are essentially being forced to guess does nothing to stop all the journalists from picking up the worst case scenario and running with it.
Everybody who's in the slightest bit nervous about this disease - which is a very large fraction of the population - is going to be shitting themselves in self-imposed lockdown within the next few days at this rate. Now, that might actually help the non-nervous fraction of the population stay out of lockdown, by reducing the number of people left in circulation, but OTOH it's going to be a catastrophe for many businesses. At this rate, a second ruined Christmas is going to destroy large swathes of the hospitality trade and of the surviving physical shops.
Unfortunately it's not the worst-case scenario, it's the central scenario. The two things we know with reasonable confidence are that Omicron is extremely transmissible, and that prior infection doesn't seem to provide much protection against it. We currently have almost no data on severity or on vaccine effectiveness against it. The central assumption must be that it's just as severe, and that vaccines are somewhat less effective against it. The worst-case scenario is that vaccines are a lot less effective against it, in which case we're f**d. The best case scenario is that it's a lot milder than delta and that vaccines remain very effective against it, but that may just be wishful thinking. We should begin to have preliminary answers in about two weeks time.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
By the way, for the record, I have never said I "had no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME" you lying little toad. I thought it obnoxious.
We know you hated Mrs May. Is it really a misogyny thing? If so it would go with the Brexit Party voting record very well.
You're the lying little toad who lied and said I voted for Farage "knowingly and lovingly" when you knew that wasn't true.
So I'm guessing you knowingly and lovingly tell migrants to GO HOME. Your logic. If you don't like it, don't throw stones at others.
Diddums are you gammoning Philip?. Re your other post, I would agree, voting for a party where the leader is a known antisemite is something I wouldn't do. People need to think that when they vote for a party they do endorse the leader. You endorsed Farage. My instinct is that you perhaps admire Farage as much as he admires Trump, but you just don't want to admit it. Let's face it, you wouldn't have advanced your obsession with exiting the EU without Farage. You must really love him, and he loves you.
But I never voted for Farage.
I voted against the racist who tells migrants to GO HOME that was ruining the country.
And in a two for the price of one I voted for Farage to be kicked out of the European Parliament.
Farage has no power and no elected position as a result of my vote.
If I had a vote to kick Corbyn out of Westminster in the same way I was able to kick Farage out of the European Parliament I'd gladly take it
Keep protesting Phil. Your claim that May is a xenophobe to cover up your own xenophobic EU-loathing is pathetic. May was a hopeless PM (not as incompetent as her successor though whom you inexplicably idolise), but she was not and is not a racist or xenophobe, she is actually a decent person. You voted for the Brexit Party. Everyone knows that is/was Nigel Farage. He is not in any way a decent person. You endorsed him. Own it.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I am sure the more acute Angles will indeed be raising the point.
Surely the Right Angles will be be the ones concerned?
The obtuse Angles couldn't give a toss, and the reflex Angles are arguing with themselves now.
Look at the sexual and moral incontinence of the adults in poor Arthur's life.
A mother who has a child, leaves father, shacks up with someone else and kills him. A father who takes up with a woman and cruelly treats and abandons his own son to make this woman happy. A step-mother who has 5 children by 4 different men, who has never worked, who throws herself out of the window and aborts another child while in custody for some offence.
I don't want to come over as some ancient prude. Evil has existed in all sorts of times and places and is no respecter of class or education. But if you look at a lot of these child murder/child abuse cases you see similar patterns: look at Baby P or any of the others over the years.
Might we at some point as a society maybe think about saying a bit more clearly that this sort of sequential rutting and casual creation and abandonment of children is, well, wrong and to be discouraged?
And, no, I don't have an easy answer as to how.
Arthur's late Great Grandfather Kenneth Labinjo was my family GP when I was a child in Wythall near Birmingham, so Olivia Labinjo- Halcrow was no sink estate peasant. There are factors in modern life like alcoholism, drug abuse and feral procreation that are just being brushed under the carpet by Government. Tim Lawton MP was on earlier demanding the lynching (my interpretation) of the social workers. I'm sure that'll help.
Lynching social workers is, of course, an essential part of the public expiation process. Ed Balls lynching Sharon Shoesmith, for example.
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Once again: until we know about infection severity, it's meaningless. A variant with increased transmissibility and lower severity is desirable.
However, the fact that the scientists are essentially being forced to guess does nothing to stop all the journalists from picking up the worst case scenario and running with it.
Everybody who's in the slightest bit nervous about this disease - which is a very large fraction of the population - is going to be shitting themselves in self-imposed lockdown within the next few days at this rate. Now, that might actually help the non-nervous fraction of the population stay out of lockdown, by reducing the number of people left in circulation, but OTOH it's going to be a catastrophe for many businesses. At this rate, a second ruined Christmas is going to destroy large swathes of the hospitality trade and of the surviving physical shops.
Unfortunately it's not the worst-case scenario, it's the central scenario. The two things we know with reasonable confidence are that Omicron is extremely transmissible, and that prior infection doesn't seem to provide much protection against it. We currently have almost no data on severity or on vaccine effectiveness against it. The central assumption must be that it's just as severe, and that vaccines are somewhat less effective against it. The worst-case scenario is that vaccines are a lot less effective against it, in which case we're f**d. The best case scenario is that it's a lot milder than delta and that vaccines remain very effective against it, but that may just be wishful thinking. We should begin to have preliminary answers in about two weeks time.
Best not to aid the panic-mongering though eh Richard? At the moment, we simply do not know. Until then it is better not to speculate until the science genuinely catches up with what is happening.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Please list some. I would love to know some that are not as easy to shoot down as a very large floating (Col.) blimp.
It's small potatoes now, but these could be big things. UVdL discussing mandatory vaccinaction in the EU - we can differ.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
So that's one thing being discussed which no EU country will apply unless they decide to do so themselves and... 'farm subsidies might be better'?
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Please list some. I would love to know some that are not as easy to shoot down as a very large floating (Col.) blimp.
It's small potatoes now, but these could be big things. UVdL discussing mandatory vaccinaction in the EU - we can differ.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
We could have taken our own path with vaccination if we had been part of EU ( I believe Hungary and Malta did). Farming subsidies? Better for whom? Definitely not the farmer and probably not the consumer
Next?
Only if we were prepared to use the Chinese and Russian vaccines, IIRC?
I think three countries initially chose not to take part in the EU vaccine procurement programme: Hungary (which bought Sputnik from Russia initially), Bulgaria (which didn't really seem to care about vaccines at all and made some lackadaisical purchases of AZ and Pfizer) and Malta (which rejoined when the EU made their mega Pfizer purchase).
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I am sure the more acute Angles will indeed be raising the point.
Surely the Right Angles will be be the ones concerned?
The obtuse Angles couldn't give a toss, and the reflex Angles are arguing with themselves now.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
By the way, for the record, I have never said I "had no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME" you lying little toad. I thought it obnoxious.
We know you hated Mrs May. Is it really a misogyny thing? If so it would go with the Brexit Party voting record very well.
You're the lying little toad who lied and said I voted for Farage "knowingly and lovingly" when you knew that wasn't true.
So I'm guessing you knowingly and lovingly tell migrants to GO HOME. Your logic. If you don't like it, don't throw stones at others.
Diddums are you gammoning Philip?. Re your other post, I would agree, voting for a party where the leader is a known antisemite is something I wouldn't do. People need to think that when they vote for a party they do endorse the leader. You endorsed Farage. My instinct is that you perhaps admire Farage as much as he admires Trump, but you just don't want to admit it. Let's face it, you wouldn't have advanced your obsession with exiting the EU without Farage. You must really love him, and he loves you.
But I never voted for Farage.
I voted against the racist who tells migrants to GO HOME that was ruining the country.
And in a two for the price of one I voted for Farage to be kicked out of the European Parliament.
Farage has no power and no elected position as a result of my vote.
If I had a vote to kick Corbyn out of Westminster in the same way I was able to kick Farage out of the European Parliament I'd gladly take it
Keep protesting Phil. Your claim that May is a xenophobe to cover up your own xenophobic EU-loathing is pathetic. May was a hopeless PM (not as incompetent as her successor though whom you inexplicably idolise), but she was not and is not a racist or xenophobe, she is actually a decent person. You voted for the Brexit Party. Everyone knows that is/was Nigel Farage. He is not in any way a decent person. You endorsed him. Own it.
Farage seems a decent person to me. Why do you say otherwise? (Aside from association with not-nice-types)
In Bexley, there was no sign of a significant ideological shift amongst the electorate. As I posted last night, the right-of-centre vote was 60.6% compared to 64.5% at the last election.
You're probably right, but I'd temper that conclusion by pointing out that only a third of the electorate voted. Apathy did a lot better than the right-of-centre vote.
I visited the constituency on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was the first time I've ever been to a by-election where there was no sign whatsoever of an election taking place. No banners, signs, posters, etc. I didn't see any electioneering either.
Neither Sir Keir nor Sadiq Khan visited, despite being fellow London MPs as well as their more senior roles - bit strange?
Sadiq Khan isn't a fellow London MP, surely? Anyway, I guess Khan didn't think he would boost Labour's vote significantly given that OBS voted heavily against him and for Bailey in the mayoral election. No surprise there. As for Keir, I guess he agreed with me - Labour hasn't got a chance, so I'll not risk it.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
As a Celt I'd like to know when all these bloody Anglo-Saxons are going home. Please take the Jutes and Norman's with you.
What's a celt doing in a fen?
Surely the more right wing Angles will be along to complain about being lumped in with those bloody Saxons? Again.
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I am sure the more acute Angles will indeed be raising the point.
Surely the Right Angles will be be the ones concerned?
The obtuse Angles couldn't give a toss, and the reflex Angles are arguing with themselves now.
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Once again: until we know about infection severity, it's meaningless. A variant with increased transmissibility and lower severity is desirable.
However, the fact that the scientists are essentially being forced to guess does nothing to stop all the journalists from picking up the worst case scenario and running with it.
Everybody who's in the slightest bit nervous about this disease - which is a very large fraction of the population - is going to be shitting themselves in self-imposed lockdown within the next few days at this rate. Now, that might actually help the non-nervous fraction of the population stay out of lockdown, by reducing the number of people left in circulation, but OTOH it's going to be a catastrophe for many businesses. At this rate, a second ruined Christmas is going to destroy large swathes of the hospitality trade and of the surviving physical shops.
Unfortunately it's not the worst-case scenario, it's the central scenario. The two things we know with reasonable confidence are that Omicron is extremely transmissible, and that prior infection doesn't seem to provide much protection against it. We currently have almost no data on severity or on vaccine effectiveness against it. The central assumption must be that it's just as severe, and that vaccines are somewhat less effective against it. The worst-case scenario is that vaccines are a lot less effective against it, in which case we're f**d. The best case scenario is that it's a lot milder than delta and that vaccines remain very effective against it, but that may just be wishful thinking. We should begin to have preliminary answers in about two weeks time.
My own opinion on this remains unchanged, in that (in common with a lot of people who have more expertise in this area than I do) I don't believe we're going to slide down the snake back to 2020 because of this.
That much said, if this were - theoretically - to end in yet another lockdown cycle, then the Government might as well stop mailing people useless test kits and start sending us all cyanide through the post instead. An endless slog of dealing with this disease through lockdowns and rules and lockdowns and rules and lockdowns and rules until the planet is engulfed by the Sun isn't any kind of life, it's just existing in one giant open prison. We might as well give up.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
Maybe. Personally, I am deeply bored of Brexit but nearly every day something* crops up to remind me what a piss-poor decision the country took.
(*in the real world, not just on PB!)
Try to spot some positive Brexit things. There are many, as the negatives. If you're not spotting them then you haven't let go to the debate. Perhaps there are more negatives than positives - I don't know. However if you entirely fail to see any positives then you're making a mistake.
Please list some. I would love to know some that are not as easy to shoot down as a very large floating (Col.) blimp.
It's small potatoes now, but these could be big things. UVdL discussing mandatory vaccinaction in the EU - we can differ.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
We could have taken our own path with vaccination if we had been part of EU ( I believe Hungary and Malta did). Farming subsidies? Better for whom? Definitely not the farmer and probably not the consumer
Next?
I suspect it ends at this point, unless we can bottle "sovereignty". That's cheap as chips at the moment.
Hah, that old one. If we didn't have sovereignty we would have had to ask the EU for permission for the referendum. We didn't, any more than we needed permission to go to war. We always had sovereignty. It was another Brexiteer con trick.
Those of a nervous disposition, look away: Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
Once again: until we know about infection severity, it's meaningless. A variant with increased transmissibility and lower severity is desirable.
However, the fact that the scientists are essentially being forced to guess does nothing to stop all the journalists from picking up the worst case scenario and running with it.
Everybody who's in the slightest bit nervous about this disease - which is a very large fraction of the population - is going to be shitting themselves in self-imposed lockdown within the next few days at this rate. Now, that might actually help the non-nervous fraction of the population stay out of lockdown, by reducing the number of people left in circulation, but OTOH it's going to be a catastrophe for many businesses. At this rate, a second ruined Christmas is going to destroy large swathes of the hospitality trade and of the surviving physical shops.
Unfortunately it's not the worst-case scenario, it's the central scenario. The two things we know with reasonable confidence are that Omicron is extremely transmissible, and that prior infection doesn't seem to provide much protection against it. We currently have almost no data on severity or on vaccine effectiveness against it. The central assumption must be that it's just as severe, and that vaccines are somewhat less effective against it. The worst-case scenario is that vaccines are a lot less effective against it, in which case we're f**d. The best case scenario is that it's a lot milder than delta and that vaccines remain very effective against it, but that may just be wishful thinking. We should begin to have preliminary answers in about two weeks time.
Best not to aid the panic-mongering though eh Richard? At the moment, we simply do not know. Until then it is better not to speculate until the science genuinely catches up with what is happening.
We shouldn't panic, but it's perfectly reasonable to take more precautions (both individually and nationally), pending more information.
So wear your masks (N99 if it looks like a high-risk environment), and above all get those jabs. I think also people will inevitably cancel low-priority social events, to avoid the risk of getting infected and having to cancel high-priority trips and events. It's already happening.
Five years on, and the bitter sore losers still don't understand why they lost...
We should have bets on whose will be a longer sulk: Scott's or Ted Heath's.
Obviously Farage and co would have gone away quietly if 52-48 had been 48-52 (!)
I would imagine most people would like to think they're better than stooping to Farage's standards.
Not our Scott I suppose.
You voted for Farage, knowingly and lovingly. Denying him thrice before the cock crows (OK after) isn't going to get you off the hook for being a supporter of a crypto-fascist.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
Did you vote for UKIP or Brexit Party?
Not at a General Election, no.
At a bullshit European Parliament election I begrudgingly cast a protest vote, as a last resort, when my own party was mired in failure led by a racist xenophobe who told immigrants to GO HOME.
But you've already told me before you have no issues with sending vans into minority areas saying GO HOME. So I'll take no lectures from one as blind as you.
I rest my case. You endorsed the vanity party of a crypto-fascist. Well done.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
This seems quite a lazy and off base insult to both PT and NF.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
Nigel Farage was described by founder of UKIP, Alan Sked as a racist. Farage is also very definitely far right. He is renowned for making nationalistic statements. he is also renowned for making anti-immigrant comments. He is well known for the hate mongering anti-immigrant poster in the Brexit campaign He has made admiring comments regarding Vladimir Putin, and is a known friend and obsequious admirer of Donald Trump. He did not challenge the lie that Trump had his election "stolen".
It is not lazy to suggest he is a crypto-fascist. It is also a fact (based on what he said) that Philip voted for him. I am right of centre, but I would never have voted for anyone with Farage's atrocious record of prejudice. Neither would I ever endorse Trump.
I can't stand Farage but he does not believe in dictatorial power or suppression of opposition. In fact he makes rather grand stands in defence of parliamentary sovereignty and free speech. His admiring comments of Putin were in one specific area and he then clarified he didn't like Putin overall and condemned his attacks on journalists.
I refer to my other post regarding Farage's obsequious interview of Trump. Perhaps you don't think Trump would apply dictatorial power if he could? And if he could would Farage criticise him? No of course not.
As obsequious and disturbing as Farage's interview of Trump was, I think the Pier Morgan one was worse.
Comments
It is liberal in allowing us by a democratic process to undo the EU protectionism which discriminates against African farmers and food processors.
It is liberal in not compelling us to tax and tariff things against our will.
It is liberal in restoring the common law tradition as the summa lex, and declining to accept a jurisdiction we have not elected or chosen to legislate and adjudicate for us.
(Yes, it's a miracle it got done. UK opinion always veers towards the anti liberal position.)
That's just a few examples. As to banning alcohol on the tube, one might wish to suggest that a liberal society by and large protects lone women, children and the frail elderly from being forced to share a small enclosed inescapable moving unpoliced space with a bunch of drunks.
Trying to suggest that Theresa May is s more xenophobic or racist and xenophobic than your Mr Farage is the most ridiculous and dumb thing you have ever written on here. It is really really really stupid Philip!
Not vastly bothered because I'm assuming I'm brim full of antibodies after getting it in Oct. But still.
But take farming subsidies - there's at least a good chance it'll be better.
This is characteristic of issues where none of the alternatives is without difficulty, the issue tends to raise strong feeling, and no society can absolutely sit on the fence about it - they are binaries. Politicians in power hate them for all those reasons and infinitely prefer to put them quietly to bed and allow hot potatoes to become cold potatoes over time.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism.”
We know you hated Mrs May. Is it really a misogyny thing? If so it would go with the Brexit Party voting record very well.
Risk Assessment for Omicron has been published.
Everything is still uncertain, but it doesn't look good.
As SAGE said: 'It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available.
https://twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson/status/1466807346487869445?s=20
TL:DR "We don't know, could be bad."
In summary:
• Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) can be identified through genotyping or sequencing – as of 30 November 2021, there are 22 confirmed cases of Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) identified through sequencing or genotyping in England; none of the cases of are known to have been hospitalised or died
• of the 22 confirmed cases, there are 12 cases who have received at least 2 doses of vaccine more than 14 days ago, 2 cases more than 28 days post first dose, 6 unvaccinated cases, and 2 with no available information
• the UKHSA genomic case definition for Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) is included and has been published for use at GitHub
• Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) can be detected through the current genotyping panel in use in England – the current profile requires K417N must be present, and P681R, E484K, and K417T must not be present; additional targets for Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) are being validated
the Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) global phylogeny shows little diversity which is compatible with a recent emergence and rapid spread – due to mixed sequence quality, requiring the masking of informative sites from the alignment, the phylogeny is not suitable for detailed cluster analysis, however it supports the epidemiological finding that there have been a number of separate introductions into England
• Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) has a deletion at position 69/70 of the spike protein which allows it to be tracked through S gene target failure (SGTF) in some polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. SGTF is also observed in a very small fraction of test results from lineages lacking this deletion, including the Delta lineage and sub-lineages. The proportion of test results with SGTF has been low over the past 90 days, but in the past week has increased. The logistic growth rate of SGTF has fluctuated between approximately -50% and +50% over the past 90 days but in the past week has climbed to +141%. This finding indicates that SGTF is growing faster, and can be considered a strong early signal. However, the number cannot be interpreted as a change in transmissibility or an increase in the absolute number of cases of the variant.
• structural modelling shared by the University of Oxford indicates that the mutations present in Omicron are highly likely to affect the binding of natural and therapeutic antibodies, and to enhance binding to human Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) to an extent greater than that seen in other variants to date. (Data not included; will be linked from here once available)
• there is very little evidence of Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) in wastewater surveillance up to 21 November 2021; more recent data is being analysed
Bit like the whole "Asian" nonsense.
I have never met anyone pro the death penalty who can answer that question.
It is not lazy to suggest he is a crypto-fascist. It is also a fact (based on what he said) that Philip voted for him. I am right of centre, but I would never have voted for anyone with Farage's atrocious record of prejudice. Neither would I ever endorse Trump.
Your logic is utterly perverted in saying people can't vote for their own reasons or have protest votes.
Infinitely more serious than the shambolic European Parliament elections after we should have already left the European Parliament was the 2019 General Election.
Are you claiming that everyone like @MikeSmithson who voted for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party were deliberately endorsing what @MikeSmithson calls an antisemitic pensioner?
Don't be pathetic.
Next?
So I'm guessing you knowingly and lovingly tell migrants to GO HOME. Your logic. If you don't like it, don't throw stones at others.
Adding to the dedicated work by South African experts who alerted the world and continue to update us
Grateful to the all the professionals working hard across borders, teams and expertise domains
https://twitter.com/DevanSinha/status/1466826714844123139?s=20
If we get anything like that even without Omicron being more able to escape the vaccines, it's going to be carnage in the NHS, unless we're lucky and it's a lot milder than delta.
https://twitter.com/Tuliodna/status/1466820922141298693
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-59521231
It seems like the guy might have been unfairly smeared nor that in this case Hancock did anything wrong.
(sorry!
"Why we should close women's prisons and treat their crimes more fairly
Mirko Bagaric
Sentencing systems around the world should be radically reformed to start with the assumption that women should not be sent to prison for their crimes"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/01/why-we-should-close-womens-prisons-and-treat-their-crimes-more-fairly
Everybody who's in the slightest bit nervous about this disease - which is a very large fraction of the population - is going to be shitting themselves in self-imposed lockdown within the next few days at this rate. Now, that might actually help the non-nervous fraction of the population stay out of lockdown, by reducing the number of people left in circulation, but OTOH it's going to be a catastrophe for many businesses. At this rate, a second ruined Christmas is going to destroy large swathes of the hospitality trade and of the surviving physical shops.
Seattle District 3 city council special recall election - Tuesday, December 7, 2021
Perhaps NOT a date that will live in infamy. Nevertheless a quite unique and highly interesting proceeding now ongoing: strong effort to remove Socialist Alternative (think Militant Tendency) city council member Kshama Sawant from office, on series of charges. (Note that in WA, unlike CA, recall charges must be judicially reviewed before reaching the ballot, so recalls are rarer.)
For those who know Seattle, District 3 consists or Capitol Hill just east (and up) from downtown, and similar areas filled with young & youngish singles, cosmopolitans, progressives, left-wokeists, etc. plus nearby high-rent residential areas dominated by somewhat older, more affluent homeowners, still liberal but notably more moderate about it.
Seattle Council District 3
total active registered voters = 77,220
ballots returned by 6pm Thur 12.02 = 25,223 (32.7%)
Deadline for returning ballots for recall is next Tuesday, either via drop box by 8pm deadline OR via mail and returned next day or postmarked on or before December 7.
So total number of ballots yet to be returned and counted? My guess is 50% to 55%, meaning that returns so far account for approximately three-fifths to two-thirds of final turnout.
Councilmember Sawant has for the last decade been THE stormy petrel of Seattle politics. After running aggressively but unsuccessfully for the legislature (versus the Democratic state house speaker) as an avowed socialist, she ran again, this time citywide for city council and unseated an incumbent. Mostly because voters wanted to send the message to the council as a whole that they (think we) were less than pleased with their performance.
Subsequently Seattle voted to switch from nine councilmembers elected at-large, to having just 2 at-large and 7 elected separately by districts. Which worked in Sawant's favor as she sought and won the District 3 seat, in the most progressive-voting part of a pretty progressive city.
In her last election in 2019, Sawant was on the ropes - but saved by massive spending AGAINST her by . . . wait for it . . . Amazon. Which swung swing voters in her favor, plus gave a spur to Sawant's own impressive grassroots organizing AND massive fundraising (mostly from out-of-town sources)
Conventional wisdom AND polling suggest that the higher the turnout, the more likely Sawant will survive the recall. My own feeling is that she will prevail yet again - but hang on to yer hat!
(Might be a short header, mind.)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10270907/Norway-Covid-60-infected-Omicron-Christmas-party-mild-symptoms.html
It's just inevitable that it will happen, and all the safeguards in the world won't stop it. There'll be a truly terrible crime, where everyone is up in arms, and the police are desperate to clear it, and someone will be convicted, and everyone will be 100% sure they are guilty.
And they won't be.
Following that, the death penalty will end up being repealed again.
- New cases: 16,055
- Average: 6,982 (+1,889)
- Positivity rate: 24.3% (+1.9)
- In hospital: 3,202 (+298)
- In ICU: 274 (+12)
- New deaths: 25
- Average: 22 (+1)
That positivity rate 😯
I voted against the racist who tells migrants to GO HOME that was ruining the country.
And in a two for the price of one I voted for Farage to be kicked out of the European Parliament.
Farage has no power and no elected position as a result of my vote.
If I had a vote to kick Corbyn out of Westminster in the same way I was able to kick Farage out of the European Parliament I'd gladly take it
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/14/trump-president-2024-election-coup-republicans
Farage is a knowing and willing participant in this populist-authoritarianism, as can be seen from his “did he just say that?” comments about immigration and his continued love affair with the anti-democratic and failed putschist, Donald Trump.
Here’s another horrible example, from the Guardian today
Poland is planning to introduce a centralised register of pregnancies that would oblige doctors to report all pregnancies and miscarriages to the government.
This is the battle of our times, and it’s incumbent on any politically aware person to pick a side.
(Yes, I'm back. Fridays were always my fav day on PB)
Not sure why we should allow new borns to have their skulls cracked by a doc.
Is your name Lockdown because you'll be coming soon.
That infection stat about Omicron and the double jabbed really is an eye opener.
Hopefully the effects are mild.
Hurrah for Brexit!
That much said, if this were - theoretically - to end in yet another lockdown cycle, then the Government might as well stop mailing people useless test kits and start sending us all cyanide through the post instead. An endless slog of dealing with this disease through lockdowns and rules and lockdowns and rules and lockdowns and rules until the planet is engulfed by the Sun isn't any kind of life, it's just existing in one giant open prison. We might as well give up.
So wear your masks (N99 if it looks like a high-risk environment), and above all get those jabs. I think also people will inevitably cancel low-priority social events, to avoid the risk of getting infected and having to cancel high-priority trips and events. It's already happening.