First thing the cleaner said this morning “bloody Boris Johnson I hate that man. What a liar. And to think I said goodbye to my dying father on an iPad for him”.
Cut through. Conservative MPs would be wise to move swiftly or the next election will already be lost.
She said goodbye to her dying father on an iPad for Boris Johnson?
Yes, he stood up in front of the nation and described the restrictions as a moral imperative, and put the teeth of criminal law behind him too. Because it was apparently so important they were followed to the letter with no room for compassion at all.
The anger among the apolitical population at large is as great as any I have seen in my lifetime.
Can I speak out in support of @Philip_Thompson for a minute. I am hardly his biggest fan and I'm sure its mutual. He is always happy to repeatedly double down with his positions - so often from a place of having minimal experience / knowledge. I assume he would be an amazing poker player with that level of bluffing.
I assume he has been put in at least time out for going all in on misquoting OGH to win a battle with @DougSeal over something irrelevant. He loves his strawmen argument and YES OR NO ultimatums. But despite me finding his "people die so what" argument to be awful he isn't abusive or stupid or dull.
We need him on this site.
I’m more worried about what he’s going to do with his days while he’s banned.
Hope that Max Verstappen wins the F1 championship cleanly this weekend, which will almost certainly settle the SPoTY bet I have with him, in his favour.
Nice deadpan. I've backed Hamilton for SPOTY, and laid him for the F1 win in the amount of the stake. A neatish arbitrage ?
Ish. The worry (from a betting perspective) would be a crash-out “victory” for MV, that leads to a massive outpouring of support for Lewis over the next week.
Why would that be a worry for me ?
You’re right, I got it the wrong way round. Am stressed at the moment, waiting for bloody covid test result that’s required to turn up tonight for a walk around the circuit.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
I don't know why we don't have Council Tax Bands that go above, e.g. £3,408.76. You could have a £3m house, easy, around here and still pay only twice as much as a flat worth 10% of it.
I have maintained that for years - more upper band rates are needed to reflect fairness
Mind you here in Wales the labour green coalition have announced a wide sale review into council tax
It will be fascinating to see which parts of the very ambitious Labour/PC programme actually get carried out.
The agreement included moves to establish rent controls; the extension of free school meals to all primary school pupils; childcare for all two-year-olds; creation of a National Care Service; limits on second-home ownership; a replacement for council tax; the creation of a publicly owned construction company and an energy company; changes to the Senedd’s size and electoral system, including a statutory guarantee of gender balance; and measures to promote the Welsh language
The one thing that I am confident about is that increasing the size of the Senedd will happen
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
What did they expect?
1) Pour money into the economy. 2) Declare house price inflation the right kind of inflation. 3) Have population rising at the rate of a small city per year. 4) Blocking the construction of homes to keep up with population growth
Can I speak out in support of @Philip_Thompson for a minute. I am hardly his biggest fan and I'm sure its mutual. He is always happy to repeatedly double down with his positions - so often from a place of having minimal experience / knowledge. I assume he would be an amazing poker player with that level of bluffing.
I assume he has been put in at least time out for going all in on misquoting OGH to win a battle with @DougSeal over something irrelevant. He loves his strawmen argument and YES OR NO ultimatums. But despite me finding his "people die so what" argument to be awful he isn't abusive or stupid or dull.
We need him on this site.
I’m more worried about what he’s going to do with his days while he’s banned.
Hope that Max Verstappen wins the F1 championship cleanly this weekend, which will almost certainly settle the SPoTY bet I have with him, in his favour.
Nice deadpan. I've backed Hamilton for SPOTY, and laid him for the F1 win in the amount of the stake. A neatish arbitrage ?
Ish. The worry (from a betting perspective) would be a crash-out “victory” for MV, that leads to a massive outpouring of support for Lewis over the next week.
Why would that be a worry for me ?
You’re right, I got it the wrong way round. Am stressed at the moment, waiting for bloody covid test result that’s required to turn up tonight for a walk around the circuit.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
First thing the cleaner said this morning “bloody Boris Johnson I hate that man. What a liar. And to think I said goodbye to my dying father on an iPad for him”.
Cut through. Conservative MPs would be wise to move swiftly or the next election will already be lost.
She said goodbye to her dying father on an iPad for Boris Johnson?
Yes, he stood up in front of the nation and described the restrictions as a moral imperative, and out the teeth of criminal law behind him too. Because it was apparently so important they were followed to the letter with no room for compassion at all.
The anger among the apolitical population at large is as great as any I have seen in my lifetime.
The rather sad truth is that the general public are shameless hypocrites on this.
Fun day for IT in the office. Fun day all round really !
Fallout from AWS outage yesterday?
Setting up for wfh again
I think I'll still be WFH on the second anniversary of the last time I was properly working in the office.
I am still working from home, but then I was before COVID.
More seriously, for one funder, I am now able to travel internationally, but not for three others. Can't wait for a real trip again. Or to work in the same room as others.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
I don't know why we don't have Council Tax Bands that go above, e.g. £3,408.76. You could have a £3m house, easy, around here and still pay only twice as much as a flat worth 10% of it.
One word: littleoldladies
Why would you have a house worth £3 million if you are unable to afford £3,000 a year Council Tax? Surely you would sell it, move somewhere cheaper, and enjoy your retirement a lot more.
Fun day for IT in the office. Fun day all round really !
Fallout from AWS outage yesterday?
Setting up for wfh again
I think I'll still be WFH on the second anniversary of the last time I was properly working in the office.
I am still working from home, but then I was before COVID.
More seriously, for one funder, I am now able to travel internationally, but not for three others. Can't wait for a real trip again. Or to work in the same room as others.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
First thing the cleaner said this morning “bloody Boris Johnson I hate that man. What a liar. And to think I said goodbye to my dying father on an iPad for him”.
Cut through. Conservative MPs would be wise to move swiftly or the next election will already be lost.
She said goodbye to her dying father on an iPad for Boris Johnson?
Yes, he stood up in front of the nation and described the restrictions as a moral imperative, and out the teeth of criminal law behind him too. Because it was apparently so important they were followed to the letter with no room for compassion at all.
The anger among the apolitical population at large is as great as any I have seen in my lifetime.
The rather sad truth is that the general public are shameless hypocrites on this.
Nobody followed the guidelines 100%.
Say it ain’t so
A lot of people tried to the best of their ability. Having numerous parties with tens of people is something quite different.
“Devastating surge of #COVID19 emerging in France 🇫🇷, where cases are near/at record highs. Cases also surging much faster & steeper than previous waves—especially in young children age 6-10. Similar spikes in other countries. May our children forgive us. HT @nicolasberrod”
The flingle-dingle-dongle is overdoing it for now. Their levels of hospital patients are about 2/3 lower in France than eg in Germany.
trend...
France has a trend of switchbacks.
France has been produced very strange figures throughout this pandemic, they have regularly had far less cases than the UK but many more people in hospital with Covid
Probably different testing regimes and also criteria for hospital admission?
I really don't know, but at the moment despite have far less cases than the UK over the past 8 weeks they have 13044 in hospital, which is nearly double the UK's number
Over the last weeks, the divide between Northern Surge and Southern Flat profiles has been at the France-Belgium France-Germany border.
Something about warm and cold climates, and length of summer?
The differences between various countries in testing are such that positive test results are only useful for internal comparisons - whether cases are up or down in country X for example.
Hospitalisation is a better measure, but not perfect because of definitions.
Can I speak out in support of @Philip_Thompson for a minute. I am hardly his biggest fan and I'm sure its mutual. He is always happy to repeatedly double down with his positions - so often from a place of having minimal experience / knowledge. I assume he would be an amazing poker player with that level of bluffing.
I assume he has been put in at least time out for going all in on misquoting OGH to win a battle with @DougSeal over something irrelevant. He loves his strawmen argument and YES OR NO ultimatums. But despite me finding his "people die so what" argument to be awful he isn't abusive or stupid or dull.
We need him on this site.
I’m more worried about what he’s going to do with his days while he’s banned.
Hope that Max Verstappen wins the F1 championship cleanly this weekend, which will almost certainly settle the SPoTY bet I have with him, in his favour.
Nice deadpan. I've backed Hamilton for SPOTY, and laid him for the F1 win in the amount of the stake. A neatish arbitrage ?
Ish. The worry (from a betting perspective) would be a crash-out “victory” for MV, that leads to a massive outpouring of support for Lewis over the next week.
Why would that be a worry for me ?
You’re right, I got it the wrong way round. Am stressed at the moment, waiting for bloody covid test result that’s required to turn up tonight for a walk around the circuit.
Good luck. #envious
Thanks. It’s been a good autumn of sport out here, with the T20 World Cup, the Rugby 7s last weekend and the F1 finale this weekend.
Makes up for pretty much all social events getting binned last year.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Yes he will just disappear from public life for a few weeks, paternity leave, xmas, new year, then pick a fight with Macron in January which will boost them both and bring back the fan boys into the fold.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
I hear it is the shit....no wait, it gives you the shits...
Can I speak out in support of @Philip_Thompson for a minute. I am hardly his biggest fan and I'm sure its mutual. He is always happy to repeatedly double down with his positions - so often from a place of having minimal experience / knowledge. I assume he would be an amazing poker player with that level of bluffing.
I assume he has been put in at least time out for going all in on misquoting OGH to win a battle with @DougSeal over something irrelevant. He loves his strawmen argument and YES OR NO ultimatums. But despite me finding his "people die so what" argument to be awful he isn't abusive or stupid or dull.
We need him on this site.
I’m more worried about what he’s going to do with his days while he’s banned.
Hope that Max Verstappen wins the F1 championship cleanly this weekend, which will almost certainly settle the SPoTY bet I have with him, in his favour.
Nice deadpan. I've backed Hamilton for SPOTY, and laid him for the F1 win in the amount of the stake. A neatish arbitrage ?
Ish. The worry (from a betting perspective) would be a crash-out “victory” for MV, that leads to a massive outpouring of support for Lewis over the next week.
Why would that be a worry for me ?
You’re right, I got it the wrong way round. Am stressed at the moment, waiting for bloody covid test result that’s required to turn up tonight for a walk around the circuit.
I'm glad I've not got tickets to this weekend's race.
Paying all that money for tickets, travel, and hotels, and getting kicked out of FP1 and banned for the rest of the weekend for calling Max Verstappen a cock juggling thunder c**t wouldn't be a good use of my money.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
The Russians probably won't take Ukraine entirely. Not now. My guess will be another big bite, of areas with high numbers of "Russian" Ukrainians.
“Devastating surge of #COVID19 emerging in France 🇫🇷, where cases are near/at record highs. Cases also surging much faster & steeper than previous waves—especially in young children age 6-10. Similar spikes in other countries. May our children forgive us. HT @nicolasberrod”
The flingle-dingle-dongle is overdoing it for now. Their levels of hospital patients are about 2/3 lower in France than eg in Germany.
trend...
France has a trend of switchbacks.
France has been produced very strange figures throughout this pandemic, they have regularly had far less cases than the UK but many more people in hospital with Covid
Probably different testing regimes and also criteria for hospital admission?
I really don't know, but at the moment despite have far less cases than the UK over the past 8 weeks they have 13044 in hospital, which is nearly double the UK's number
Over the last weeks, the divide between Northern Surge and Southern Flat profiles has been at the France-Belgium France-Germany border.
Something about warm and cold climates, and length of summer?
The differences between various countries in testing are such that positive test results are only useful for internal comparisons - whether cases are up or down in country X for example.
Hospitalisation is a better measure, but not perfect because of definitions.
Basically the only international comparison that has a chance of being accurate is excess deaths and a fair few countries hide those as well.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Westland was nowhere near as bad as this.
The problem for Boris is that recent events have cruelly illuminated a pattern of behaviour going back years, which people were vaguely aware of but sorta forgave as Boris can be funny. Breaking Covid lockdown to have a party IS NOT FUNNY
So now he is suddenly not-forgiven for all the other stuff, especially as he is also reimposing Covid lockdown rules
The end is night-ish for him, he needs a gamechanger. Can't see where it comes from
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
Supposedly still happening, but I wonder....
I am looking forward to hearing what wisdom is imparted from the interdimensional elves / the dark recesses of your subconscious
Can I speak out in support of @Philip_Thompson for a minute. I am hardly his biggest fan and I'm sure its mutual. He is always happy to repeatedly double down with his positions - so often from a place of having minimal experience / knowledge. I assume he would be an amazing poker player with that level of bluffing.
I assume he has been put in at least time out for going all in on misquoting OGH to win a battle with @DougSeal over something irrelevant. He loves his strawmen argument and YES OR NO ultimatums. But despite me finding his "people die so what" argument to be awful he isn't abusive or stupid or dull.
We need him on this site.
I’m more worried about what he’s going to do with his days while he’s banned.
Hope that Max Verstappen wins the F1 championship cleanly this weekend, which will almost certainly settle the SPoTY bet I have with him, in his favour.
Nice deadpan. I've backed Hamilton for SPOTY, and laid him for the F1 win in the amount of the stake. A neatish arbitrage ?
Ish. The worry (from a betting perspective) would be a crash-out “victory” for MV, that leads to a massive outpouring of support for Lewis over the next week.
What happens, points-wise, if they take each other out?
MV wins the championship, as he has one more win than LH - the race that never was, in Belgium.
The worry is, that MV now has an incentive to do just that.
Not quite
"Formula 1 race director Michael Masi has reminded teams and drivers that any unsporting conduct at the Abu Dhabi season finale could result in a championship points deduction."
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
I don't know why we don't have Council Tax Bands that go above, e.g. £3,408.76. You could have a £3m house, easy, around here and still pay only twice as much as a flat worth 10% of it.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
I don't know why we don't have Council Tax Bands that go above, e.g. £3,408.76. You could have a £3m house, easy, around here and still pay only twice as much as a flat worth 10% of it.
One word: littleoldladies
These arguments get trotted out, but I'm hardly a Trostskite.
I do genuinely mean bands that affect people with £1.5m + properties.
In the US, land of the aspiration middle classes, property taxes are commonly 1-3% of property value - that's £10,000 to £30,000 a year on a £1m property or 7 to 21 times what we pay here.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
Supposedly still happening, but I wonder....
The Armish apparently deliberately tried to give themselves herd immunity from COVID through the means of passing around their cups at church.....sharing about Amazon hippy juice sounds like a similar efficient method.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
Supposedly still happening, but I wonder....
So we need another explanation for your recent posts.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
I don't know why we don't have Council Tax Bands that go above, e.g. £3,408.76. You could have a £3m house, easy, around here and still pay only twice as much as a flat worth 10% of it.
I do. Because the well-off didn't like paying the rates. It was designed by a Tory government to have precisely those features.
First thing the cleaner said this morning “bloody Boris Johnson I hate that man. What a liar. And to think I said goodbye to my dying father on an iPad for him”.
Cut through. Conservative MPs would be wise to move swiftly or the next election will already be lost.
She said goodbye to her dying father on an iPad for Boris Johnson?
Yes, he stood up in front of the nation and described the restrictions as a moral imperative, and out the teeth of criminal law behind him too. Because it was apparently so important they were followed to the letter with no room for compassion at all.
The anger among the apolitical population at large is as great as any I have seen in my lifetime.
The rather sad truth is that the general public are shameless hypocrites on this.
First thing the cleaner said this morning “bloody Boris Johnson I hate that man. What a liar. And to think I said goodbye to my dying father on an iPad for him”.
Cut through. Conservative MPs would be wise to move swiftly or the next election will already be lost.
She said goodbye to her dying father on an iPad for Boris Johnson?
Yes, he stood up in front of the nation and described the restrictions as a moral imperative, and put the teeth of criminal law behind him too. Because it was apparently so important they were followed to the letter with no room for compassion at all.
The anger among the apolitical population at large is as great as any I have seen in my lifetime.
Yes, agree about the anger. My mother is in a care home. There was always an exemption in place to see your loved one in an end of life situation. My father lives alone, if he was on his last legs wild horses wouldn't keep me from going to see him.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Yes he will just disappear from public life for a few weeks, paternity leave, xmas, new year, then pick a fight with Macron in January which will boost them both and bring back the fan boys into the fold.
Pretty plausible. He should be hiring you on a big salary as Stratton's replacement
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
What did they expect?
1) Pour money into the economy. 2) Declare house price inflation the right kind of inflation. 3) Have population rising at the rate of a small city per year. 4) Blocking the construction of homes to keep up with population growth
True. But at the same time, that wealth is illiquid. Taxing it 'properly' would force a lot of people not only out of their homes but out of their localities, just because they happened to be somewhere that 'got lucky' (which undoubtedly wouldn't be how they saw it).
The only 'fair' ways to do it, IMO, are through inheritance tax and property sales taxes - in other words, when residency is changing anyway.
There is an argument for higher, more progressive council tax banding (and updating ratings), and I get that no-one has a right to live in a home they can't afford. But equally, should the govt be effectively actively evicting people? I don't think so.
Oh, also - stick up interest rates. That alone will bring prices down a bit.
“Devastating surge of #COVID19 emerging in France 🇫🇷, where cases are near/at record highs. Cases also surging much faster & steeper than previous waves—especially in young children age 6-10. Similar spikes in other countries. May our children forgive us. HT @nicolasberrod”
The flingle-dingle-dongle is overdoing it for now. Their levels of hospital patients are about 2/3 lower in France than eg in Germany.
trend...
France has a trend of switchbacks.
France has been produced very strange figures throughout this pandemic, they have regularly had far less cases than the UK but many more people in hospital with Covid
Probably different testing regimes and also criteria for hospital admission?
I really don't know, but at the moment despite have far less cases than the UK over the past 8 weeks they have 13044 in hospital, which is nearly double the UK's number
Over the last weeks, the divide between Northern Surge and Southern Flat profiles has been at the France-Belgium France-Germany border.
Something about warm and cold climates, and length of summer?
The differences between various countries in testing are such that positive test results are only useful for internal comparisons - whether cases are up or down in country X for example.
Hospitalisation is a better measure, but not perfect because of definitions.
Basically the only international comparison that has a chance of being accurate is excess deaths and a fair few countries hide those as well.
And that is a long way in the rear view mirror.
For day-to-day comparisons, I would say hospital admissions, and number in hospital would be a fair comparison for developed world countries.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
Supposedly still happening, but I wonder....
The Armish apparently deliberately tried to give themselves herd immunity from COVID through the means of passing around their cups at church.....sharing about Amazon hippy juice sounds like a similar efficient method.
Yes. Quite. And the geezers I'm doing it with are not 20-somethings. So I have grave doubts it will go ahead
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Are you still doing the ayahuasca trip? Intrigued to hear what you get out of it.
Supposedly still happening, but I wonder....
If you actually had Covid recently, you are more likely to test positive when trying to get back into the UK.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
The Russians probably won't take Ukraine entirely. Not now. My guess will be another big bite, of areas with high numbers of "Russian" Ukrainians.
Followed by ethnic cleansing of the Ukrainian population.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Thing is - you need to also put yourself in the lottery of death, otherwise you have no real stake. Other people dying who you've never met is 'easy'.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
I'd laugh my ***s off if Russia invaded, NATO said it would respond, invoked Article 5, and then volunteered the UK to sort it out.
Can I speak out in support of @Philip_Thompson for a minute. I am hardly his biggest fan and I'm sure its mutual. He is always happy to repeatedly double down with his positions - so often from a place of having minimal experience / knowledge. I assume he would be an amazing poker player with that level of bluffing.
I assume he has been put in at least time out for going all in on misquoting OGH to win a battle with @DougSeal over something irrelevant. He loves his strawmen argument and YES OR NO ultimatums. But despite me finding his "people die so what" argument to be awful he isn't abusive or stupid or dull.
We need him on this site.
I’m more worried about what he’s going to do with his days while he’s banned.
Hope that Max Verstappen wins the F1 championship cleanly this weekend, which will almost certainly settle the SPoTY bet I have with him, in his favour.
Nice deadpan. I've backed Hamilton for SPOTY, and laid him for the F1 win in the amount of the stake. A neatish arbitrage ?
Ish. The worry (from a betting perspective) would be a crash-out “victory” for MV, that leads to a massive outpouring of support for Lewis over the next week.
What happens, points-wise, if they take each other out?
MV wins the championship, as he has one more win than LH - the race that never was, in Belgium.
The worry is, that MV now has an incentive to do just that.
Not quite
"Formula 1 race director Michael Masi has reminded teams and drivers that any unsporting conduct at the Abu Dhabi season finale could result in a championship points deduction."
Welcome to PB, but forgive my lack of trust in the FIA to actually switch the championship winner with a penalty, if push came to shove, came to crash.
First thing the cleaner said this morning “bloody Boris Johnson I hate that man. What a liar. And to think I said goodbye to my dying father on an iPad for him”.
Cut through. Conservative MPs would be wise to move swiftly or the next election will already be lost.
She said goodbye to her dying father on an iPad for Boris Johnson?
Yes, he stood up in front of the nation and described the restrictions as a moral imperative, and put the teeth of criminal law behind him too. Because it was apparently so important they were followed to the letter with no room for compassion at all.
The anger among the apolitical population at large is as great as any I have seen in my lifetime.
I agree. What’s more, not only does it manifest in anger at the personal inconvenience or tragedies that the lockdown caused, but also the impact on others. If you know a family member who’s husband or wife couldn’t see them in hospital etc etc, it causes further anger because the rules hurt and upset them too.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
This is far worse than Westland, but…. …do the people who voted for Boris actually care?
Perhaps this was priced in? You don’t vote Boris for good governance or integrity. I suspect the people that like Boris don’t care too much about corruption, hypocrisy or taking the piss, They might actually like him sending up the institutions and mocking the whole thing. Everyone else never voted for him in the first place. He’s there because he creates a mess and distracts from the tough choices and realities of life.
As such the moves towards another lockdown might be more damaging.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Westland was nowhere near as bad as this.
The problem for Boris is that recent events have cruelly illuminated a pattern of behaviour going back years, which people were vaguely aware of but sorta forgave as Boris can be funny. Breaking Covid lockdown to have a party IS NOT FUNNY
So now he is suddenly not-forgiven for all the other stuff, especially as he is also reimposing Covid lockdown rules
The end is night-ish for him, he needs a gamechanger. Can't see where it comes from
How about triggering Article 16 and with maximum hardball chutzpah over a couple of dramatic weeks forcing the EU just before Christmas to change a couple of sentences in their offer on the Protocol?
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
Cases down vs last Thursday in Wales today. Anyway, everyone will definitely get Omicron, you just have to make sure you’re vaccined up.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
Nah. Putin had Trump's measure. And probably his negatives.
NATO won't ride to Ukraine's rescue as such. There won't be American boots on the ground in Kiev. But there may well be (damn well should be) very strong economic sanctions - including, for example, freezing all Russian assets, private or public, above a low maximum. Obviously, Russia would respond with a boycott of gas sales and the like (hence why it's happening in winter, and why Russia has already been restricting sales, to run down client stocks), but that is a price that should be paid.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
Oh look, Ed's in Putin's mind and he can report to us that the Russian hardman was scared of Donald Trump.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Thing is - you need to also put yourself in the lottery of death, otherwise you have no real stake. Other people dying who you've never met is 'easy'.
Oh, I put myself in there, of course. And vulnerable family and friends, too
Otherwise it's a pointless exercise in wishcasting
I reckon I am probably OK personally. Triple jabbed, likely (?) already infected at least once, no comorbidities, apart from the booze I lead a reasonably healthy life: gym, fish, seaweed, all that. Not much stress, no office hours
Of all the hills to die on I’m not sure why @Philip_Thompson chose a pedant off with me that essentially revolved around a definition of “2008”. I hate to back down as much as the next man but even I have limits…
That is extraordinary. Reinforces the dodgy donors aspects of the scandal, won't cut it either with the commissioner or the public, is massive sophistry at the very best.
So, with such amazing lengths being gone to, we're back to just how pant-shittingly scared are they of the truth?
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Yes he will just disappear from public life for a few weeks, paternity leave, xmas, new year, then pick a fight with Macron in January which will boost them both and bring back the fan boys into the fold.
He's running out of time wrt Macron. The fishing license process should simply have been stopped with a "use the Treaty dispute mechanism" months ago, which would go our way. Time is required for Brexit success to develop, and it's getting short.
There's another chance tomorrow, but BJ is too moronic to do it.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Fair point but this is a very different media environment and an issue of more pressing import to people than helicopters
Hard to know, actually.
Sturgeon clearly survived extensive ... shall we say ... forgetfulness of what happened in the Salmond affair with no great difficulty earlier this year. The public can be surprisingly forgiving.
Whether Boris survives probably comes down to whether he wants to.
There may be more of a question mark as to whether the lazy slob actually wants to, given that he could earn much more as ex-PM
In fact, given that Wanker Clegg earns much more as ex-Deputy PM, it is surprising to me that anyone wants to be in Government for very long anymore.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Westland was nowhere near as bad as this.
The problem for Boris is that recent events have cruelly illuminated a pattern of behaviour going back years, which people were vaguely aware of but sorta forgave as Boris can be funny. Breaking Covid lockdown to have a party IS NOT FUNNY
So now he is suddenly not-forgiven for all the other stuff, especially as he is also reimposing Covid lockdown rules
The end is night-ish for him, he needs a gamechanger. Can't see where it comes from
How about triggering Article 16 and with maximum hardball chutzpah over a couple of dramatic weeks forcing the EU just before Christmas to change a couple of sentences in their offer on the Protocol?
No, not good enough. He needs something huge like the first vaccine surge. Something near-miraculous to blow away the stink
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Yes he will just disappear from public life for a few weeks, paternity leave, xmas, new year, then pick a fight with Macron in January which will boost them both and bring back the fan boys into the fold.
He's running out of time wrt Macron. The fishing license process should simply have been stopped with a "use the Treaty dispute mechanism" months ago, which would go our way. Time is required for Brexit success to develop, and it's getting short.
There's another chance tomorrow, but BJ is too moronic to do it.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Westland was nowhere near as bad as this.
The problem for Boris is that recent events have cruelly illuminated a pattern of behaviour going back years, which people were vaguely aware of but sorta forgave as Boris can be funny. Breaking Covid lockdown to have a party IS NOT FUNNY
So now he is suddenly not-forgiven for all the other stuff, especially as he is also reimposing Covid lockdown rules
The end is night-ish for him, he needs a gamechanger. Can't see where it comes from
Boris won't be going anywhere. He has a historical perspective. He knows fine well others have weathered far worse and come through.
Look at Bill Clinton. Lies, Lewinsky, impeachment. He would have won re-election and a third term easily if the constitution didn't have term limits.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
Nah. Putin had Trump's measure. And probably his negatives.
NATO won't ride to Ukraine's rescue as such. There won't be American boots on the ground in Kiev. But there may well be (damn well should be) very strong economic sanctions - including, for example, freezing all Russian assets, private or public, above a low maximum. Obviously, Russia would respond with a boycott of gas sales and the like (hence why it's happening in winter, and why Russia has already been restricting sales, to run down client stocks), but that is a price that should be paid.
What’s Chinas or India’s position? Would they join sanctions? We need to know that. I Putin just signed a deal with Modi.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
At the moment I'd settle for the death toll not including me.
Not commenting on Plan B: just pointing out that if ever there were to be a legislative amendment to criminalise singing along when at the theatre - an offence which (in most circs) many believe should carry the death penalty - now would be the time for it to be introduced.
Can I speak out in support of @Philip_Thompson for a minute. I am hardly his biggest fan and I'm sure its mutual. He is always happy to repeatedly double down with his positions - so often from a place of having minimal experience / knowledge. I assume he would be an amazing poker player with that level of bluffing.
I assume he has been put in at least time out for going all in on misquoting OGH to win a battle with @DougSeal over something irrelevant. He loves his strawmen argument and YES OR NO ultimatums. But despite me finding his "people die so what" argument to be awful he isn't abusive or stupid or dull.
We need him on this site.
I’m more worried about what he’s going to do with his days while he’s banned.
Hope that Max Verstappen wins the F1 championship cleanly this weekend, which will almost certainly settle the SPoTY bet I have with him, in his favour.
Nice deadpan. I've backed Hamilton for SPOTY, and laid him for the F1 win in the amount of the stake. A neatish arbitrage ?
Ish. The worry (from a betting perspective) would be a crash-out “victory” for MV, that leads to a massive outpouring of support for Lewis over the next week.
What happens, points-wise, if they take each other out?
MV wins the championship, as he has one more win than LH - the race that never was, in Belgium.
The worry is, that MV now has an incentive to do just that.
Not quite
"Formula 1 race director Michael Masi has reminded teams and drivers that any unsporting conduct at the Abu Dhabi season finale could result in a championship points deduction."
Welcome to PB, but forgive my lack of trust in the FIA to actually switch the championship winner with a penalty, if push came to shove, came to crash.
Sounds like this could end up with Court of Arbitration for Sport sometime in 2022......
Mr. Rabbit, to play Devil's advocate, Senna and Prost both pulled this nonsense and got away with it.
And Hamilton suffered no points deduction for Silverstone.
Historically you are correct. But is it right? And should it be tolerated in face of safety.
Martin Brundle has anecdote from before got into F1 himself and senna going for the title (gp2, 3?) the stunt senna pulled on Prost for title Brundle could have pulled on Senna.
Should it not be tolerated on both grounds of unsporting and dangerous?
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
Nah. Putin had Trump's measure. And probably his negatives.
NATO won't ride to Ukraine's rescue as such. There won't be American boots on the ground in Kiev. But there may well be (damn well should be) very strong economic sanctions - including, for example, freezing all Russian assets, private or public, above a low maximum. Obviously, Russia would respond with a boycott of gas sales and the like (hence why it's happening in winter, and why Russia has already been restricting sales, to run down client stocks), but that is a price that should be paid.
The plan I believe is to remove Russian Banks from the Swift and IBAN networks. That basically doesn't require anyone apart from the US to insist upon it and everyone will follow..
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
Nah. Putin had Trump's measure. And probably his negatives.
NATO won't ride to Ukraine's rescue as such. There won't be American boots on the ground in Kiev. But there may well be (damn well should be) very strong economic sanctions - including, for example, freezing all Russian assets, private or public, above a low maximum. Obviously, Russia would respond with a boycott of gas sales and the like (hence why it's happening in winter, and why Russia has already been restricting sales, to run down client stocks), but that is a price that should be paid.
What’s Chinas or India’s position? Would they join sanctions? We need to know that. I Putin just signed a deal with Modi.
I think it’s reasonably likely china would make a move on Taiwan at the same time.
Why would china care about Ukraine, other than to use the situation to their advantage?
The post ww2 peace settlement looks very brittle, to me.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
What did they expect?
1) Pour money into the economy. 2) Declare house price inflation the right kind of inflation. 3) Have population rising at the rate of a small city per year. 4) Blocking the construction of homes to keep up with population growth
True. But at the same time, that wealth is illiquid. Taxing it 'properly' would force a lot of people not only out of their homes but out of their localities, just because they happened to be somewhere that 'got lucky' (which undoubtedly wouldn't be how they saw it).
The only 'fair' ways to do it, IMO, are through inheritance tax and property sales taxes - in other words, when residency is changing anyway.
There is an argument for higher, more progressive council tax banding (and updating ratings), and I get that no-one has a right to live in a home they can't afford. But equally, should the govt be effectively actively evicting people? I don't think so.
Oh, also - stick up interest rates. That alone will bring prices down a bit.
Proportional property tax with fix Council Tax and Stamp Duty. Plus CGT on main dwellings.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
Nah. Putin had Trump's measure. And probably his negatives.
NATO won't ride to Ukraine's rescue as such. There won't be American boots on the ground in Kiev. But there may well be (damn well should be) very strong economic sanctions - including, for example, freezing all Russian assets, private or public, above a low maximum. Obviously, Russia would respond with a boycott of gas sales and the like (hence why it's happening in winter, and why Russia has already been restricting sales, to run down client stocks), but that is a price that should be paid.
The plan I believe is to remove Russian Banks from the Swift and IBAN networks.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
I'd laugh my ***s off if Russia invaded, NATO said it would respond, invoked Article 5, and then volunteered the UK to sort it out.
A Russian partition or occupation of Ukraine would actually suit US interests. It would remind the Western Europeans they still need the US and stop them getting any ideas about stragic autonomy. It would tie the Russians up for decades of expensive misery as a bonus.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
What did they expect?
1) Pour money into the economy. 2) Declare house price inflation the right kind of inflation. 3) Have population rising at the rate of a small city per year. 4) Blocking the construction of homes to keep up with population growth
True. But at the same time, that wealth is illiquid. Taxing it 'properly' would force a lot of people not only out of their homes but out of their localities, just because they happened to be somewhere that 'got lucky' (which undoubtedly wouldn't be how they saw it).
The only 'fair' ways to do it, IMO, are through inheritance tax and property sales taxes - in other words, when residency is changing anyway.
There is an argument for higher, more progressive council tax banding (and updating ratings), and I get that no-one has a right to live in a home they can't afford. But equally, should the govt be effectively actively evicting people? I don't think so.
Oh, also - stick up interest rates. That alone will bring prices down a bit.
Proportional property tax with fix Council Tax and Stamp Duty. Plus CGT on main dwellings.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
One reference point as to how inured we've become to Covid. The estimated actual global death toll from Covid is around 20m. That would be 2m more than died in World War I - in half the time.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
One reference point as to how inured we've become to Covid. The estimated actual global death toll from Covid is around 20m. That would be 2m more than died in World War I - in half the time.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
Good points. Good thoughts. I’ll pass that on to the Soup Dragon for you.
Although she is on a distant moon, she does take East West diplomatic mind games very seriously.
That is extraordinary. Reinforces the dodgy donors aspects of the scandal, won't cut it either with the commissioner or the public, is massive sophistry at the very best.
So, with such amazing lengths being gone to, we're back to just how pant-shittingly scared are they of the truth?
Have you ever tried to grind the truth out of a guilty teenager, especially when you jolly well know the truth already? Can't confess, because they know and fear the consequences. So they tie themselves tighter and tighter in knots.
We're about two cycles from "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD", I reckon.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
I am shortly up to Highgate for oysters and fine wines with an old pal. We are not going gentle into that good night
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
You cannot negotiate with the virus; and no-one has any idea what actions will lead to what level of deaths. All we can say - roughly - is certain actions - e.g. masks, wfh, vax - *reduces* infections and deaths. But we have no ides what the baseline of deaths will be for non-action, especially with Omicron.
(I saw the Soup Dragon yesterday, so I have some Moon Rabbit soup for lunch today. Complete with the green string they used to trap it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRyP_I0OOA)
Oh wow. That’s the stuff. Magical. 🥰
Bllllllllllllllllluh (Translated: without packing out Ukrainian with NATO troops, looks like the West have agree to let Putin invade without a fight)
Smokey Joe does seem to be being a little dim. 'No, we won't send our military in', essentially. I thought the idea was to leave them wondering.
Though the forces of Ukraine are a lot bigger and a lot better than they were before. It would be interesting if the Russkies tried and were sent back in underpants and flip-flops.
That’s seriously worrying.
If the Russkis go over the border, threatening to take Ukraine and leave a massive border between Russia and NATO, how are the NATO countries supposed to respond to Ukraine’s cry for help?
Grow a pair, Sleepy Joe. Tell them they can expect to be bombed back to Moscow.
We are not going to get in a shooting war (which could easily go nuclear) with Russia over Ukraine. We are just not. Biden knows it and Putin knows it.
I don’t know why the f*ck anyone thinks NATO will ride to Ukraine’s rescue. As you said, everyone knows it. The only reason Putin didn’t do it earlier is that he thought Trump might be nuts enough to actually do something
Nah. Putin had Trump's measure. And probably his negatives.
NATO won't ride to Ukraine's rescue as such. There won't be American boots on the ground in Kiev. But there may well be (damn well should be) very strong economic sanctions - including, for example, freezing all Russian assets, private or public, above a low maximum. Obviously, Russia would respond with a boycott of gas sales and the like (hence why it's happening in winter, and why Russia has already been restricting sales, to run down client stocks), but that is a price that should be paid.
What’s Chinas or India’s position? Would they join sanctions? We need to know that. I Putin just signed a deal with Modi.
Wouldn't matter. The Kremlin's dodgy overseas money isn't in India or China.
The West should absolutely be doing everything it can to keep / get India on side though. Frankly, it shouldn't be all that hard, particularly now that Pakistan doesn't matter.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
One reference point as to how inured we've become to Covid. The estimated actual global death toll from Covid is around 20m. That would be 2m more than died in World War I - in half the time.
Yes but didn't Spanish flu kill more than that?
50-80m is the estimate. Huge
But there is now a chance that Covid could equal it, if OMICRON THE SCYTHE-WIELDER gets going in the unvaxxed poor
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Yes he will just disappear from public life for a few weeks, paternity leave, xmas, new year, then pick a fight with Macron in January which will boost them both and bring back the fan boys into the fold.
I can't see the party junking him unless and until the polls show clearly that he's become a liability (cf a realistic alternative) in the sort of seats where the next GE will be decided. We're miles off that (although it could happen quickly of course) and so although I hope he goes and goes soon, my betting view is this is a good time to back him to still be PM at next years Tory Party conference. 1.5 on that is value imo.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
One reference point as to how inured we've become to Covid. The estimated actual global death toll from Covid is around 20m. That would be 2m more than died in World War I - in half the time.
The world / European population (heck even the UK population) is a lot higher now then in 1914. So the figures are higher but the percentage of population way lower.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Yes he will just disappear from public life for a few weeks, paternity leave, xmas, new year, then pick a fight with Macron in January which will boost them both and bring back the fan boys into the fold.
I can't see the party junking him unless and until the polls show clearly that he's become a liability (cf to a realistic alternative) in the sort of seats where the next GE will be decided. We're miles off that (although it could happen quickly of course) and so although I hope he goes and goes soon, my betting view is this is a good time to back him to still be PM at next years Tory Party conference. 1.5 is value imo.
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
I'm guessing there is an olive left and that's all in the first martini but you are mixing/have ordered the second. Amiright?
Entirely sober. I reckon this is a cold calculation we are all quietly making. The bargaining stage
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
It's precisely those bargains that the government needs to make and let us know what they have decided. We are coming up to two years now and this might last a few more years. The public should be asked their views on this and also for extra funding for the NHS if that is what it will take for the NHS to be "protected" regardless of this or that virus.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
One reference point as to how inured we've become to Covid. The estimated actual global death toll from Covid is around 20m. That would be 2m more than died in World War I - in half the time.
From a British only perspective, Covid is running at ~1/3rd of battlefield casualties, leaving civilians alone.
I'm sure this makes me a monster, but I feel a much greater sense of loss for 20 year old soldiers than covid deaths with a median age of 82, if we want the full perspective, however.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Westland was nowhere near as bad as this.
The problem for Boris is that recent events have cruelly illuminated a pattern of behaviour going back years, which people were vaguely aware of but sorta forgave as Boris can be funny. Breaking Covid lockdown to have a party IS NOT FUNNY
So now he is suddenly not-forgiven for all the other stuff, especially as he is also reimposing Covid lockdown rules
The end is night-ish for him, he needs a gamechanger. Can't see where it comes from
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Fair point but this is a very different media environment and an issue of more pressing import to people than helicopters
Hard to know, actually.
Sturgeon clearly survived extensive ... shall we say ... forgetfulness of what happened in the Salmond affair with no great difficulty earlier this year. The public can be surprisingly forgiving.
Whether Boris survives probably comes down to whether he wants to.
There may be more of a question mark as to whether the lazy slob actually wants to, given that he could earn much more as ex-PM
In fact, given that Wanker Clegg earns much more as ex-Deputy PM, it is surprising to me that anyone wants to be in Government for very long anymore.
A few things to note WRT Sturgeon however:
1. The whiff of scandal over the whole Salmond affair was uncomfortable and unpleasant, but it didn’t personally impact people in the same way as the perceived hypocrisy of the Covid rules did. The charge was essentially that there was a bit of a smoky room vibe about trying to “get” a fellow politician. Not edifying by any stretch of the imagination, but not personally impactful to people. It might have had more cut-through if Salmond was a popular king over the water who enjoyed more personal popularity than Sturgeon, but as it was he was seen as yesterday’s man at the time that this all blew up.
2. Sturgeons raison d’etre is independence. She will be backed by a large chunk of the population until she achieves that goal, or encounters a significant failure in trying to bring that about (eg a referendum loss). Boris’ raison d’etre for many was bringing about Brexit. He did. His personal story in some ways is already complete. Unless he can come up with another good reason why he should stick around and why those supporters should continue to vote for him. At the moment that’s fear of nurse in voting for Labour (Labour are currently making inroads in trying to correct that, but there’s more to do) and the levelling up agenda. Which is not going great places at the moment.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
What did they expect?
1) Pour money into the economy. 2) Declare house price inflation the right kind of inflation. 3) Have population rising at the rate of a small city per year. 4) Blocking the construction of homes to keep up with population growth
True. But at the same time, that wealth is illiquid. Taxing it 'properly' would force a lot of people not only out of their homes but out of their localities, just because they happened to be somewhere that 'got lucky' (which undoubtedly wouldn't be how they saw it).
The only 'fair' ways to do it, IMO, are through inheritance tax and property sales taxes - in other words, when residency is changing anyway.
There is an argument for higher, more progressive council tax banding (and updating ratings), and I get that no-one has a right to live in a home they can't afford. But equally, should the govt be effectively actively evicting people? I don't think so.
Oh, also - stick up interest rates. That alone will bring prices down a bit.
Proportional property tax with fix Council Tax and Stamp Duty. Plus CGT on main dwellings.
Job done.
Yes. Job done.
Also election lost.
CGT on main dwellings looks lovely but creates a whole different set of issues.
Simply replacing Council Tax with something else fixes a lot of the issues but a rebranding and revaluation of council tax is such a brave decision the VOA / Treasury are petrified to even suggest it.
Mr. Rabbit, consistency would be the counter-argument.
Hamilton got a 10s time penalty for taking out Verstappen in Silverstone, which saw the Dutchman get 0 points and Hamilton still claim 25.
I don't for a moment think that was vindictive on Hamilton's part but his car was in a fundamentally different place to that when he passed Leclerc at the same track section later in the race.
Omicron: was that the name of the villain in The Three Doctors special of Doctor Who? Edited extra bit: i think it was him or Omega.
“Corlett said a change was needed. “Choosing not to tax this huge housing wealth windfall . . . has real consequences, including higher taxes for workers and businesses.”
He’s right. Time to tax property, properly.
It is but at the same time a political graveyard for any party threatened taxes on individual peoples homes
What did they expect?
1) Pour money into the economy. 2) Declare house price inflation the right kind of inflation. 3) Have population rising at the rate of a small city per year. 4) Blocking the construction of homes to keep up with population growth
True. But at the same time, that wealth is illiquid. Taxing it 'properly' would force a lot of people not only out of their homes but out of their localities, just because they happened to be somewhere that 'got lucky' (which undoubtedly wouldn't be how they saw it).
The only 'fair' ways to do it, IMO, are through inheritance tax and property sales taxes - in other words, when residency is changing anyway.
There is an argument for higher, more progressive council tax banding (and updating ratings), and I get that no-one has a right to live in a home they can't afford. But equally, should the govt be effectively actively evicting people? I don't think so.
Oh, also - stick up interest rates. That alone will bring prices down a bit.
Proportional property tax with fix Council Tax and Stamp Duty. Plus CGT on main dwellings.
Job done.
Yes. Job done.
Also election lost.
I have an idea...
Take the increase in population each year (estimated). Distribute the numbers around the country - each council is on the hook to produce X new homes - either private development or whatever.
IF they want to be nimbies - they can *buy* house credits for houses built by councils in other areas. Bit like Carbon Credits. So a council that builds above the quota can sell the excess to those below quota.
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Yes he will just disappear from public life for a few weeks, paternity leave, xmas, new year, then pick a fight with Macron in January which will boost them both and bring back the fan boys into the fold.
He's running out of time wrt Macron. The fishing license process should simply have been stopped with a "use the Treaty dispute mechanism" months ago, which would go our way. Time is required for Brexit success to develop, and it's getting short.
There's another chance tomorrow, but BJ is too moronic to do it.
What's happening tomorrow?
Tomorrow is the date the EU have asked the UK to resolve all the disputes by. Obvs they have no authority to impose a deadline, but it is an opportunity.
AIUI There are two lots of disputes - those with no serious evidence submitted, which have gone nowhere, and those with some evidence but more required where the deadline has been extended to Jan 31.
I'm saying the Govt should just declare the first category done and dusted with a Non. It resolves those disputes :-).
Mr Macaron will go off like a Roman Candle, but that's what he does.
Plus there are separate processes for UK / Jersey / Guernsey.
Comments
The anger among the apolitical population at large is as great as any I have seen in my lifetime.
The agreement included moves to establish rent controls; the extension of free school meals to all primary school pupils; childcare for all two-year-olds; creation of a National Care Service; limits on second-home ownership; a replacement for council tax; the creation of a publicly owned construction company and an energy company; changes to the Senedd’s size and electoral system, including a statutory guarantee of gender balance; and measures to promote the Welsh language
The one thing that I am confident about is that increasing the size of the Senedd will happen
(Why else might a wealthy donor be picked to chair refurbishment trust?)
But PM original denial much wider than that: "(PM) knew nothing about such payments"
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1468892847835340806
1) Pour money into the economy.
2) Declare house price inflation the right kind of inflation.
3) Have population rising at the rate of a small city per year.
4) Blocking the construction of homes to keep up with population growth
#envious
If OMICRON THE BARGAINER offered you a deal, would you take it?
ie how many deaths would be acceptable, if OMICRON THE MERCIFUL BUT CRUEL then brought Covid to an end as a pandemic, and it was tamed into a new flu?
I reckon I'd take 100,000 UK deaths this winter. Easy. 100,000 morbidly obese, stupidly antivax, very very old, sorry guys - bye. The rest of us get our lives back
In fact if OMICRON THE TRUTHFUL swore blind that he'd stop fucking us over, and turn into a cold by May, forever and ever, I might accept 500,000 deaths. Pretty steep, but there ya go. A million just seems too callous.
Nobody followed the guidelines 100%.
Say it ain’t so
More seriously, for one funder, I am now able to travel internationally, but not for three others. Can't wait for a real trip again. Or to work in the same room as others.
Hospitalisation is a better measure, but not perfect because of definitions.
Can Johnson recover?
Of course, Many a politician has been immersed in worse shit and come up smelling of roses.
Many pundits & commentators thought Thatcher would not survive the Westland affair.
Not merely did she, ... she won the General Election the following year convincingly.
Makes up for pretty much all social events getting binned last year.
Paying all that money for tickets, travel, and hotels, and getting kicked out of FP1 and banned for the rest of the weekend for calling Max Verstappen a cock juggling thunder c**t wouldn't be a good use of my money.
The problem for Boris is that recent events have cruelly illuminated a pattern of behaviour going back years, which people were vaguely aware of but sorta forgave as Boris can be funny. Breaking Covid lockdown to have a party IS NOT FUNNY
So now he is suddenly not-forgiven for all the other stuff, especially as he is also reimposing Covid lockdown rules
The end is night-ish for him, he needs a gamechanger. Can't see where it comes from
"Formula 1 race director Michael Masi has reminded teams and drivers that any unsporting conduct at the Abu Dhabi season finale could result in a championship points deduction."
I do genuinely mean bands that affect people with £1.5m + properties.
In the US, land of the aspiration middle classes, property taxes are commonly 1-3% of property value - that's £10,000 to £30,000 a year on a £1m property or 7 to 21 times what we pay here.
Because the well-off didn't like paying the rates.
It was designed by a Tory government to have precisely those features.
It's time to confront the immorality of lockdowns
The failure of religious and spiritual leaders to address the societal costs of restrictions has been an utter travesty
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/09/time-confront-immorality-lockdowns/
The only 'fair' ways to do it, IMO, are through inheritance tax and property sales taxes - in other words, when residency is changing anyway.
There is an argument for higher, more progressive council tax banding (and updating ratings), and I get that no-one has a right to live in a home they can't afford. But equally, should the govt be effectively actively evicting people? I don't think so.
Oh, also - stick up interest rates. That alone will bring prices down a bit.
For day-to-day comparisons, I would say hospital admissions, and number in hospital would be a fair comparison for developed world countries.
"If I'm in a theatre watching a musical, can I take my mask off to sing?"
No10: "Yes. There is a general exemption for singing"
So could I walk into Tesco without a mask as long as I'm singing?
No10: "Essentially, yes"
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468926687287070735
OK one more winter, take 200,000, I can cope, then just go away
We can endure a lot of pain, and a lot of death, and a lot of lockdown, what we cannot endure is that it might never stop. That this is it, forever. That is intolerable. So we make little mental bargains to get us thru the days
…do the people who voted for Boris actually care?
Perhaps this was priced in? You don’t vote Boris for good governance or integrity. I suspect the people that like Boris don’t care too much about corruption, hypocrisy or taking the piss, They might actually like him sending up the institutions and mocking the whole thing. Everyone else never voted for him in the first place. He’s there because he creates a mess and distracts from the tough choices and realities of life.
As such the moves towards another lockdown might be more damaging.
Except- what if triggering A16 turns out to make things worse, not better?
If it were cost-free National Vim, Boris would have done it at the Party Conference.
NATO won't ride to Ukraine's rescue as such. There won't be American boots on the ground in Kiev. But there may well be (damn well should be) very strong economic sanctions - including, for example, freezing all Russian assets, private or public, above a low maximum. Obviously, Russia would respond with a boycott of gas sales and the like (hence why it's happening in winter, and why Russia has already been restricting sales, to run down client stocks), but that is a price that should be paid.
Otherwise it's a pointless exercise in wishcasting
I reckon I am probably OK personally. Triple jabbed, likely (?) already infected at least once, no comorbidities, apart from the booze I lead a reasonably healthy life: gym, fish, seaweed, all that. Not much stress, no office hours
I'd bet on me to make it through
Could take both my parents tho
So, with such amazing lengths being gone to, we're back to just how pant-shittingly scared are they of the truth?
There's another chance tomorrow, but BJ is too moronic to do it.
Sturgeon clearly survived extensive ... shall we say ... forgetfulness of what happened in the Salmond affair with no great difficulty earlier this year. The public can be surprisingly forgiving.
Whether Boris survives probably comes down to whether he wants to.
There may be more of a question mark as to whether the lazy slob actually wants to, given that he could earn much more as ex-PM
In fact, given that Wanker Clegg earns much more as ex-Deputy PM, it is surprising to me that anyone wants to be in Government for very long anymore.
Look at Bill Clinton. Lies, Lewinsky, impeachment. He would have won re-election and a third term easily if the constitution didn't have term limits.
Hell, even Trump was nearly re-elected.
Nope. Lots more entertainment to come.
Greg Callus
@Greg_Callus
Not commenting on Plan B: just pointing out that if ever there were to be a legislative amendment to criminalise singing along when at the theatre - an offence which (in most circs) many believe should carry the death penalty - now would be the time for it to be introduced.
Martin Brundle has anecdote from before got into F1 himself and senna going for the title (gp2, 3?) the stunt senna pulled on Prost for title Brundle could have pulled on Senna.
Should it not be tolerated on both grounds of unsporting and dangerous?
Why would china care about Ukraine, other than to use the situation to their advantage?
The post ww2 peace settlement looks very brittle, to me.
Oh and what on earth are you doing sober? It's past one o'clock.
Plus CGT on main dwellings.
Job done.
Also election lost.
Although she is on a distant moon, she does take East West diplomatic mind games very seriously.
We're about two cycles from "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD", I reckon.
The West should absolutely be doing everything it can to keep / get India on side though. Frankly, it shouldn't be all that hard, particularly now that Pakistan doesn't matter.
But there is now a chance that Covid could equal it, if OMICRON THE SCYTHE-WIELDER gets going in the unvaxxed poor
https://igamingbusiness.com/philp-throws-support-behind-scv-and-affordability-in-gb-gambling-review/
Will make it close to impossible for winning punters.
I'm sure this makes me a monster, but I feel a much greater sense of loss for 20 year old soldiers than covid deaths with a median age of 82, if we want the full perspective, however.
1. The whiff of scandal over the whole Salmond affair was uncomfortable and unpleasant, but it didn’t personally impact people in the same way as the perceived hypocrisy of the Covid rules did. The charge was essentially that there was a bit of a smoky room vibe about trying to “get” a fellow politician. Not edifying by any stretch of the imagination, but not personally impactful to people. It might have had more cut-through if Salmond was a popular king over the water who enjoyed more personal popularity than Sturgeon, but as it was he was seen as yesterday’s man at the time that this all blew up.
2. Sturgeons raison d’etre is independence. She will be backed by a large chunk of the population until she achieves that goal, or encounters a significant failure in trying to bring that about (eg a referendum loss). Boris’ raison d’etre for many was bringing about Brexit. He did. His personal story in some ways is already complete. Unless he can come up with another good reason why he should stick around and why those supporters should continue to vote for him. At the moment that’s fear of nurse in voting for Labour (Labour are currently making inroads in trying to correct that, but there’s more to do) and the levelling up agenda. Which is not going great places at the moment.
Simply replacing Council Tax with something else fixes a lot of the issues but a rebranding and revaluation of council tax is such a brave decision the VOA / Treasury are petrified to even suggest it.
Hamilton got a 10s time penalty for taking out Verstappen in Silverstone, which saw the Dutchman get 0 points and Hamilton still claim 25.
I don't for a moment think that was vindictive on Hamilton's part but his car was in a fundamentally different place to that when he passed Leclerc at the same track section later in the race.
Omicron: was that the name of the villain in The Three Doctors special of Doctor Who? Edited extra bit: i think it was him or Omega.
The present boundaries of Ukraine were set by Stalin. It is the impossible country.
It would be better if Ukraine is dismembered with minimum loss of blood. But, one way or another, it will inevitably be dismembered.
Because no-one can put the House that Joe Built back together again.
Just as no-one could put the House that Tito Built back together again.
Take the increase in population each year (estimated). Distribute the numbers around the country - each council is on the hook to produce X new homes - either private development or whatever.
IF they want to be nimbies - they can *buy* house credits for houses built by councils in other areas. Bit like Carbon Credits. So a council that builds above the quota can sell the excess to those below quota.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/fishing-row-france-uk-le-havre-port-boats-brexit-b963094.html
AIUI There are two lots of disputes - those with no serious evidence submitted, which have gone nowhere, and those with some evidence but more required where the deadline has been extended to Jan 31.
I'm saying the Govt should just declare the first category done and dusted with a Non. It resolves those disputes :-).
Mr Macaron will go off like a Roman Candle, but that's what he does.
Plus there are separate processes for UK / Jersey / Guernsey.