Strictly is where it's at. Rose has been favourite for ages and is now odds on (!!) to win with AJ at 10s (bf) and John Whaite at 40s (bf).
I mean Rose was great but AJ and John both put in 10s performances which means on a coin toss the public would have to prefer Rose's story to the others. Which they very well might. We do like a story and Rose's is moving and genuinely admirable.
But then so is John/Johannes' and lest we forget apart from being a goddess AJ as a black woman also is breaking ground.
But on the dancing alone those odds are totally out of whack and I've backed AJ & John.
It does end up being a personality popularity contest in the final when you have three excellent dancers.
As an aside, it warms the cockles of my heart that despite the BBC including a few 'minority' contestants for 'diversity' the Great British Public have shown them they have no truck with that sort of nonsense. Oh...
I think in the early stages of the competition you get some biases coming through in the public vote (and I believe there is statistical evidence on this). You usually have an inexplicably popular white man making it through a bit further than you would expect on dancing ability alone (cough *Dan* cough). And it would be worse without the judges having a final say in the dance-off. But by the time of the final you usually see the best dancers still in the competition, and the winner usually seems about right. From about week three I've been expecting the three we have now to make it to the final, for instance.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining! Scotland is part of the island of GB like England, Scotland and Wales, geographically it is different to NI too, hence it is the UK of GB and NI, Scotland is just a part of GB.
Given the SNP failed to get a majority in May despite Brexit most Scots are clearly not that bothered by the Brexit deal either
Strictly is where it's at. Rose has been favourite for ages and is now odds on (!!) to win with AJ at 10s (bf) and John Whaite at 40s (bf).
I mean Rose was great but AJ and John both put in 10s performances which means on a coin toss the public would have to prefer Rose's story to the others. Which they very well might. We do like a story and Rose's is moving and genuinely admirable.
But then so is John/Johannes' and lest we forget apart from being a goddess AJ as a black woman also is breaking ground.
But on the dancing alone those odds are totally out of whack and I've backed AJ & John.
My five year-old niece is hooked on strictly. I asked her yesterday who was best on Saturday night and her response was instant:
Rose!
I watched on Saturday, and Rose looked like a pro to me in a way the others don’t.
On Police Scotland, they are now saying that they will record rapes as having been carried by a woman if the accused person "insists".
Now forget the trans issue for a minute (though note that doing this completely ignores the legal definition of rape and buggers up the statistics and data, which will affect the viability of initiatives like the one on domestic violence @DavidL was describing upthread).
But just listen to the underlying approach - if the accused "insists".
Excuse me. Since when should the accused be able to insist on how the police do their job?
Will the police close the case without investigation if the accused person "insists? Will they destroy evidence if the accused person "insists"? What else will they do if the accused person "insists"?
Someone should be saying to them: don't be so fucking stupid. Your job is to investigate. Concentrate on that. That means recording facts accurately. Not worrying about validating someone else's feelings. That is not your job.
It's the careering about from one half-arsed objective to another which leads to the police failing to focus on - and be halfway competent in - their key day job.
Once again, you seemed to be unduly interested in facts. Facts are hard, oppressive and don't take into account... feelings. And feelings are much more important than facts.
Accidentally having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA is factual. But dancing badly at the Notting Hill Carnival makes someone (who?) *feel* better. So that is the important bit.
Okay, I'll bite. Though I'm not sure why you have the propensity to bring race into so many things. It doesn't follow from Cyclefree's points.
Having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA - yes, highly problematic - suggests targeted policing. Police officers dancing badly at Notting Hill Carnival - a good thing. and certainly not something to be concerned about. The last 50 years in this country shows relations between the police and the black community to be frequently sour, which is inimical to both good policing and crime detection. Improving relations with young black people and winning their confidence is well worth doing, because those with confidence in the police are more likely to share information with them. Dancing while policing a carnival is pretty harmless in this context.
Not mis-using anti-terrorism legislation to arrest young black men would have done more for police/black community relations than Cressida Dick doing the Moonwalk at every single Carnival. By 3 or 4 orders of magnitude.
When my fiancé was a lady from Ghana, we used to get stopped on a weekly basis while driving. Not been stopped before or since.
The issue follows exactly from what Cyclefree is talking about - Finding and fixing the actual problems. Doing actual work.....
On Police Scotland, they are now saying that they will record rapes as having been carried by a woman if the accused person "insists".
Now forget the trans issue for a minute (though note that doing this completely ignores the legal definition of rape and buggers up the statistics and data, which will affect the viability of initiatives like the one on domestic violence @DavidL was describing upthread).
But just listen to the underlying approach - if the accused "insists".
Excuse me. Since when should the accused be able to insist on how the police do their job?
Will the police close the case without investigation if the accused person "insists? Will they destroy evidence if the accused person "insists"? What else will they do if the accused person "insists"?
Someone should be saying to them: don't be so fucking stupid. Your job is to investigate. Concentrate on that. That means recording facts accurately. Not worrying about validating someone else's feelings. That is not your job.
It's the careering about from one half-arsed objective to another which leads to the police failing to focus on - and be halfway competent in - their key day job.
Once again, you seemed to be unduly interested in facts. Facts are hard, oppressive and don't take into account... feelings. And feelings are much more important than facts.
Accidentally having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA is factual. But dancing badly at the Notting Hill Carnival makes someone (who?) *feel* better. So that is the important bit.
Okay, I'll bite. Though I'm not sure why you have the propensity to bring race into so many things. It doesn't follow from Cyclefree's points.
Having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA - yes, highly problematic - suggests targeted policing. Police officers dancing badly at Notting Hill Carnival - a good thing. and certainly not something to be concerned about. The last 50 years in this country shows relations between the police and the black community to be frequently sour, which is inimical to both good policing and crime detection. Improving relations with young black people and winning their confidence is well worth doing, because those with confidence in the police are more likely to share information with them. Dancing while policing a carnival is pretty harmless in this context.
I tend to agree.
The bitter irony of the Stephen Port case is that for all the rainbow flags and dancing at Pride etc when it came to actual crimes against gay men the police were found badly wanting.
If it comes to a choice between waving flags or being bloody good detectives so that you catch killers, there really is only one choice.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining!
Shut up and go away, that BJ/HYUFD plan to save the Union in full.
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
What's the logic of allowing the lapped cars through after a safety car? Why not just keep them in the positions they were in when the SC came out?
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining!
Shut up and go away, that BJ/HYUFD plan to save the Union in full.
Also interesting that HYUFD is blaming us for not being a bunch of terrorists.
On Police Scotland, they are now saying that they will record rapes as having been carried by a woman if the accused person "insists".
Now forget the trans issue for a minute (though note that doing this completely ignores the legal definition of rape and buggers up the statistics and data, which will affect the viability of initiatives like the one on domestic violence @DavidL was describing upthread).
But just listen to the underlying approach - if the accused "insists".
Excuse me. Since when should the accused be able to insist on how the police do their job?
Will the police close the case without investigation if the accused person "insists? Will they destroy evidence if the accused person "insists"? What else will they do if the accused person "insists"?
Someone should be saying to them: don't be so fucking stupid. Your job is to investigate. Concentrate on that. That means recording facts accurately. Not worrying about validating someone else's feelings. That is not your job.
It's the careering about from one half-arsed objective to another which leads to the police failing to focus on - and be halfway competent in - their key day job.
Once again, you seemed to be unduly interested in facts. Facts are hard, oppressive and don't take into account... feelings. And feelings are much more important than facts.
Accidentally having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA is factual. But dancing badly at the Notting Hill Carnival makes someone (who?) *feel* better. So that is the important bit.
Okay, I'll bite. Though I'm not sure why you have the propensity to bring race into so many things. It doesn't follow from Cyclefree's points.
Having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA - yes, highly problematic - suggests targeted policing. Police officers dancing badly at Notting Hill Carnival - a good thing. and certainly not something to be concerned about. The last 50 years in this country shows relations between the police and the black community to be frequently sour, which is inimical to both good policing and crime detection. Improving relations with young black people and winning their confidence is well worth doing, because those with confidence in the police are more likely to share information with them. Dancing while policing a carnival is pretty harmless in this context.
I tend to agree.
The bitter irony of the Stephen Port case is that for all the rainbow flags and dancing at Pride etc when it came to actual crimes against gay men the police were found badly wanting.
If it comes to a choice between waving flags or being bloody good detectives so that you catch killers, there really is only one choice.
The problem is that I am quite certain that the Pride attendance stuff gets a zillion times more management approval in the police than work to find, arrest, charge and convict gay bashers.
Who knew that F1 could occupy more column inches on PB than a crucial by-election and a cyclefree header!
I have no idea about the rights and wrongs of the race but I'm amazed that a company with the reputation and resources of Mercedes are taking this further. Losing the championship will do them far less damage than looking like bad losers.
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
What's the logic of allowing the lapped cars through after a safety car? Why not just keep them in the positions they were in when the SC came out?
No idea really. I assume they consider it a matter of safety but personally it seems daft to me. All I can say is that those are the rules that apply.
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
The best analogy for me is that one team is winning 4-0 in stoppage time when the ref says "next goal wins" and awards a penalty to the team that was losing.
And sends the Goalie off as well. What irked me most yesterday was Christian Horner saying that he had to let them race. For 52 laps they had raced and Hamilton was comfortably clear. The "race" was verstappen on soft tyres trying to overtake a car on tyres 40 laps old. It was a foregone conclusion what would happen.
Horner is a whiny tosser. But he was right - all the teams wanted a racing finish (as stated by Masi and not disputed). That their gambles on strategy had paid off and Mercedes conservatism hadn't isn't cheating - its luck. And I don't think its a foregone conclusion either - Hamilton almost re-took the lead on dead tyres. Had his tyres been 20 laps fresher then I expect he would have held it as he had the faster car on the straights.
None of the football analogies work btw.
I think they do because the rules were not followed yesteday. This rule that allows the race director to do what he likes is clearly not what the rule was intended for and what happened yesterday has never ever happened before in F1. He had to let all the lapped cars overtake. But not doing so he made it obvious that he was fixing the situation to have a final lap showdown between Max and Lewis. The lapped cars behind Verstappen were not allowed to overtake which hindered the other drivers fighting for positon. The football analogy works because a ref would be allowed to not follow the rules of football to set up an exciting but fixed finish to a game.
My thoughts from last night, posted on another forum:
“Okay, just watched the highlights, now going to bed. Initial thoughts…
“We thought the procedure was rushed for “the show”, but hadn’t realised that the instruction was only given to half of the lapped cars to overtake, and hadn’t realised there was an original decision for lapped cars to not overtake. To be honest, after a couple of laps of the SC we expected a red flag, to give a “Baku Sprint” finish once they’d cleaned up the mess.
“Masi is bang to rights for a breach of 48.12, (“Unless the clerk of the course considers the presence of the safety car is still necessary, once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap.”) and the FIA are going to have an almighty problem working out what to do about it. He was making things up as he went along, when there are a specific set of rules he needs to follow.
“Just about the only possibility is to curtail the race by two laps, and declare the result on the positions behind the SC. But that overturns the drivers’ championship, for something that isn’t the fault of the champion - which is quite the mess they’ve got themselves into.
“Also LOL to find out that Mercedes bought their lawyer with them. This has a CAS case written all over it.”
The FIA have done a good job of bringing their own sport into disrepute in the past few weeks, seemingly desparate to see a new name on the trophy. WWF1
A red flag would have been better, absolutely. Though we have to recognise the red herring that is the lapped cars. Lets assume that Latifi's car had been lifted slightly quicker and all lapped cars had gone by. One lap left. Verstappen on new softs behind Lewis on worn hards. No grounds for appeal. Would Mercedes have been happy? No.
Nor is there any scope for "curtail the race by two laps" because one team doesn't like the result. Nowhere in the regulations does it even suggest the possibility of considering such a thing.
The hard reality is that Mercedes fucked up their strategy and were unlucky. They believed the hard tyre would go to the end, Hamilton was doing his best but kept telling them that the tyres wouldn't last at that pace. And then manna from heaven - the virtual safety car. An opportunity for a cheap pit stop which Red Bull took and Mercedes didn't. Leaving Hamilton on tyres that were only heading in one direction. Had they pitted during the VSC the differential between Hamilton and Verstappen would not have been so high.
Then we have the Latifi crash itself. Red Bull saw it and rolled the dice, Verstappen straight in for a pitstop. Had there not have been a safety car then his chances of catching Hamilton had completely gone. If your response is "well of course it would be a safety car" then Mercedes had the same opportunity and missed it.
The real sad thing for me about the whole thing is how whiny and petulant both the Red Bull and Mercedes teams have been. For months. The FIA really needs to give both of them a calm pill.
Sanest F1 post I’ve read on here for a long time. The general tone on this blog has been utterly appalling and really makes me concerned about the mental health of many of the posters. Calm down folks! It’s only entertainment. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Ssshhhh, it's much more entertaining reading the F1 crywank than PT's anti-science lies. Leave them be.
Sound advice. Primal screaming may be just the therapy motörheads require.
The speed of collapse from F1 is the most epic thing ever to I am never watching this pathetic apology for a competitive sport again was as good as a play.
If Wullie S was still about I’m sure he’d be able to weave a terrific tragicomedy out of overpaid bairns, drunken yokels and corrupt authority. Throw is some side-plots on scantily clad models, Arab dictators, a scintillating tyre dispute, jingoism and xenophobia and he’d have a hit to surpass Hamlet.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining! Scotland is part of the island of GB like England, Scotland and Wales, geographically it is different to NI too, hence it is the UK of GB and NI, Scotland is just a part of GB.
Given the SNP failed to get a majority in May despite Brexit most Scots are clearly not that bothered by the Brexit deal either
I'll tell you another reason why I am complaining - the Borders Bill and what it does for my very many friends and relatives who have shared nationality, including the Irish of the North and South.
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
That would make it even more exciting, if not enough cars finish to get points because the leader has lapped them all then he gets the extra points.
And yes F1 are missing a trick by not having annulled the race and instead having a one vs one head to head winner takes all.
Who knew that F1 could occupy more column inches on PB than a crucial by-election and a cyclefree header!
I have no idea about the rights and wrongs of the race but I'm amazed that a company with the reputation and resources of Mercedes are taking this further. Losing the championship will do them far less damage than looking like bad losers.
But they have been robbed.
The FIA maybe had a right to rob them of it, but they have been. The rules were not followed, instead the FIA gave Masi the right to create new rules on his whim and then said that there's no issue not following the rules because Masi can do as he pleases.
If they don't make a stink about this now then what's to stop the rot from getting deeper in the future? They need to make a stink to ensure this doesn't happen again, its one thing having unfortunate luck its another thing entirely having rules that did not exist be applied instead on somebodies whim.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining!
Shut up and go away, that BJ/HYUFD plan to save the Union in full.
Also interesting that HYUFD is blaming us for not being a bunch of terrorists.
The crack of the Armalite and the firm smack of truncheons against grannies' skulls is political language that HYUFD really understands.
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
You were laughably claiming that Boris Johnson was one of the greatest PMs of all time not that long ago IIRC. You also even more laughably said that I was a "bad judge of character" because I didn't share your unquestioning fanboy view of Johnson.
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
England: Extension of vaccination rollout announced to take effect on Monday. Frequently you can book over the weekend because the system is updated and ready to go.
Scotland: Health secretary announces on Twitter extension of vaccination rollout for next day. Wife phones up the next day and told it's not happening until the next next day.
But it's Johnson who hasn't done any forward planning.
What's changed is the shortening of the remaining booster programme by more than half, according to Johnson's announcement. Time is of the essence, so any further acceleration they can make is worth it, even if they don't make the target, as long as it is orderly.
I think the broadcast had three objectives:
1. Get people to take Omicron seriously so they change their behaviour. 2. Make it clear we're entirely dependent on vaccination and voluntary measures. Johnson won't bring in any new NPIs. 3. Allow Johnson to take the initiative with the kind of showy programme he likes.
The key question is (2). Will it be enough?
Doubtful. As you say, collapsing 7 weeks of work into 3 at zero notice when Christmas and New Year are in those 3 is *challenging*. The pledge is that "Everyone eligible aged 18 and over in England will have the chance to get their booster before the New Year." That means the system has to have enough doses and appointment slots to do everyone in 3 weeks. Which is a million a day.
We need this to happen. But it seems unlikely. Sadly.
Tell you what - lets let them try eh? When they fail, as you have decided that they will, you can come on and shout about how prescient you are.
FFS - for once try to see things with a neutral stance.
"Leave him alone, he's doing his best"
I *support* the attempt to do this. We have no other choice. The data with Omicron gets worse and worse so their only play other than hard lockdown now is smash out as many boosters as possible and hope it works. I want this to work because it has to.
But pointing out the challenge is not me saying they will fail wanting to be smug. I don't want to be right. It just seems massively unlikely to do it in 3 normal weeks, never mind these 3 weeks.
So I expect the result will be another lockdown. Which again I do not want.
I think you'll be surprised. Firstly I don't think omicron is going to have the impact on hospitalization/death that you do. Secondly, I doubt a lockdown will happen. There are still more measures that can come in that are a long way short of that.
What you think about Omicron is as irrelevant as what I think about it. What *the medics and scientists* think is what matters. And they are not as optimistic as you are. I wish they were, but they're not.
I too am concerned. I have been making noises about a lockdown announcement next Saturday, after all (though that's probably at least partly down to me catastrophizing as a coping mechanism.)
Anyway, it's neither some kind of heresy, nor a Govian "we've had enough of experts" assertion, for others to doubt some of the more dire predictions. Lest we forget, the models have been wrong before. All of the SAGE-commissioned models projecting the effects of unlockdown in England in July significantly overestimated both caseload and subsequent deaths. Some were ludicrously wide of the mark, i.e. those particular scientists were all proven wrong. So we shall see.
I absolutely agree that models can be wrong - thats why they are models. My specific point on this one is that there are two groups of people. The medics and scientists with training, experience and access to the data. And internet experts without those.
The more the collected medics and scientists collate and model data which grows in size every day, the worse it looks to then=m. They might be wrong - we hope to God they are. But it doesn't look good. Saying "I don't think Omicron is x" is like me hypothesising that the moon may be made of cheese after all. We can say it, but it doesn't make us the person with the knowledge nor likely to be more right than the actual experts.
Again this is a valid point, but we need some latitude to form our own opinions and express our own judgments. If we're just going to blindly follow the experts 100% of the time then that's an argument for, amongst other things, dissolving democracy and replacing it with government by a collection of academic steering committees.
I'm as "pro-science" as anybody but even I reserve the right to dissent occasionally, e.g. when I point out that there's little or no evidence to suggest that low-level NPIs have made Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland any safer from Covid, compared to England which got rid of them, when you look at the course of the epidemic over the period from July to November. I may very well be wrong regardless, but at least I can point at the caseload numbers and say "where is the effect of restrictions hidden in all this lot?" The answer that comes back seems, basically, to be "NPIs must work, so the signal is obviously being masked by other unspecified factors, but we don't really know for sure what those are." I can provide figures, the other side of the argument offers guesswork. So how can they be certain that I'm wrong?
Strictly is where it's at. Rose has been favourite for ages and is now odds on (!!) to win with AJ at 10s (bf) and John Whaite at 40s (bf).
I mean Rose was great but AJ and John both put in 10s performances which means on a coin toss the public would have to prefer Rose's story to the others. Which they very well might. We do like a story and Rose's is moving and genuinely admirable.
But then so is John/Johannes' and lest we forget apart from being a goddess AJ as a black woman also is breaking ground.
But on the dancing alone those odds are totally out of whack and I've backed AJ & John.
It does end up being a personality popularity contest in the final when you have three excellent dancers.
As an aside, it warms the cockles of my heart that despite the BBC including a few 'minority' contestants for 'diversity' the Great British Public have shown them they have no truck with that sort of nonsense. Oh...
I think in the early stages of the competition you get some biases coming through in the public vote (and I believe there is statistical evidence on this). You usually have an inexplicably popular white man making it through a bit further than you would expect on dancing ability alone (cough *Dan* cough). And it would be worse without the judges having a final say in the dance-off. But by the time of the final you usually see the best dancers still in the competition, and the winner usually seems about right. From about week three I've been expecting the three we have now to make it to the final, for instance.
Yes, but can't the judges effectively veto the public eliminating the 'wrong' couple, right up until the final vote when it's a public choice?
The NHS has run out of mail order Lateral flow tests...
wow that's true.
I have for the past few weeks been ordering a kit every 24hrs because at some stage they will be needed regularly and also I wouldn't put it past the govt starting to charge for them (huge disincentive to test as this would be, if however it's mandatory...).
So I'm alright (jack) but how does this leave the "mandatory lateral flow" test events/venues?
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
What's the logic of allowing the lapped cars through after a safety car? Why not just keep them in the positions they were in when the SC came out?
No idea really. I assume they consider it a matter of safety but personally it seems daft to me. All I can say is that those are the rules that apply.
Mail Online: 'Why weren't we doing this MONTHS ago?': Tory MPs and NHS bosses warn dishing out a MILLION boosters a day in face of Omicron will be 'incredibly difficult' and may see operations cancelled again - as GPs say they only found out scaling up plans LAST NIGHT
The answer to the question is....the JCVI....
I think the answer is that, in the absence of Omicron, resources were focused more heavily on catch up with services and outstanding care, perhaps partly because waiting lists were what the Mail was wailing about then.
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
What's the logic of allowing the lapped cars through after a safety car? Why not just keep them in the positions they were in when the SC came out?
The logic of getting the lapped cars out of the way, is so the leaders are all together at the restart.
When they didn’t used to let the lapped cars through, you had a very chaotic restart with blue flags waving at half the field, and there were incidents and accidents as people backed off to let the leaders through immediately.
Against allowing them through, and pertinent to yesterday’s incident, is that it takes an extra lap or so to get everyone in the right order. Yesterday they didn’t have that extra lap, and started making up rules on the spot.
Who knew that F1 could occupy more column inches on PB than a crucial by-election and a cyclefree header!
I have no idea about the rights and wrongs of the race but I'm amazed that a company with the reputation and resources of Mercedes are taking this further. Losing the championship will do them far less damage than looking like bad losers.
I can't understand what the hell they are thinking. They are pissed at what they see is an unfair interpretation of the rules. So they meet straight after the race and decide what to do.
They come up with two complaints. That Verstappen overtook Hamilton behind the safety car, and that the SC procedure was wrong. The first one is laughable and got slapped away quickly. The second offers no viable way to somehow overturn the result. So why bother even going to the stewards? and now to the CAS?
Have the meeting. Vent. Come out and make a statement that the race director's actions have damaged the credibility of the sport and spoiled the show. But that as you can't undo history you aren't challenging the race but will be going to the FIA asking for rules and procedures to be tightened.
Instead they are embarrassing themselves. Because Toto and Horner are both whiny pricks.
Mr. Divvie, thanks (although Mr. Eagles' views on classical history are about as valid as a vow of fidelity from Boris Johnson).
This year I had some poor judgement and rotten luck (in stark contrast to the blindingly flukey 2020 season) but did manage to just barely scrape into the green.
I'm glad that while my bet (Norris best of the rest) failed here it wasn't either a Perez podium or Hamilton win tip. I'd be pretty annoyed if I'd backed those.
Well done! Everyone loves a green book. Even a modest one.
The NHS has run out of mail order Lateral flow tests...
wow that's true.
I have for the past few weeks been ordering a kit every 24hrs because at some stage they will be needed regularly and also I wouldn't put it past the govt starting to charge for them (huge disincentive to test as this would be, if however it's mandatory...).
So I'm alright (jack) but how does this leave the "mandatory lateral flow" test events/venues?
There's still room in your cupboard despite all the bog rolls already in there?
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
That would make it even more exciting, if not enough cars finish to get points because the leader has lapped them all then he gets the extra points.
And yes F1 are missing a trick by not having annulled the race and instead having a one vs one head to head winner takes all.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining!
Shut up and go away, that BJ/HYUFD plan to save the Union in full.
Also interesting that HYUFD is blaming us for not being a bunch of terrorists.
The crack of the Armalite and the firm smack of truncheons against grannies' skulls is political language that HYUFD really understands.
I also don't understand this "land" border business when there are umpteen sea and air borders with other countries and nations - and having a land border with England [edit] makes a nonsense of the argument, because a land border within GB is no different from a sea border between GB and NI. And when Mr Johnson's idea of saving the union is to talk very loudly of building a bridge between Scotland and NI.
It's not even as if the English marine border with France is much of one with the tunnels and the daily rowing regatta.
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
You were laughably claiming that Boris Johnson was one of the greatest PMs of all time not that long ago IIRC. You also even more laughably said that I was a "bad judge of character" because I didn't share your unquestioning fanboy view of Johnson.
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
I stand by that.
He should be ousted but he is one of the most consequential PMs of all time and still one of the best in my lifetime. Even if he has flaws, so do all PMs, they're all only human.
I'm not so naïve as to think that politicians are honest or are some sort of angel, or that Boris is unique in not being so.
The NHS has run out of mail order Lateral flow tests...
That must be a new thing; someone in my social circle ordered a box yesterday afternoon and they're arriving this morning.
Could well and truly put the kibosh on the Government's plans for keeping masses of fully vaccinated individuals out of self-isolation if this becomes a chronic problem though. And that's essential. I know that there's a lot of scepticism about letting people use testing to avoid self-isolation, and understandably so. However, the Government must have genuine concerns about a pingdemic on steroids, given the transmissibility advantage of Omicron. And the one thing that's worse than letting a load of potential plague spreaders loose back into the community is having so many people locked up at once that basic services - not just healthcare but food supply and utilities - start to collapse for lack of workers.
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
What's the logic of allowing the lapped cars through after a safety car? Why not just keep them in the positions they were in when the SC came out?
The logic of getting the lapped cars out of the way, is so the leaders are all together at the restart.
When they didn’t used to let the lapped cars through, you had a very chaotic restart with blue flags waving at half the field, and there were incidents and accidents as people backed off to let the leaders through immediately.
Against allowing them through, and pertinent to yesterday’s incident, is that it takes an extra lap or so to get everyone in the right order. Yesterday they didn’t have that extra lap, and started making up rules on the spot.
They *did* have the extra lap had Masi acted early enough. If you listen to driver radio the midfield guys are asking why they haven't already been released.
Again, Mercedes found themselves on the wrong tyre and their challenger right up their arse on the correct tyre. So whilst they are challenging how the SC procedure was used what they really mean is that the race should not have restarted because their driver would lose if it did.
Surely you were there to see a race. Not to see a race prevented from happening because one team screwed their strategy up.
On Police Scotland, they are now saying that they will record rapes as having been carried by a woman if the accused person "insists".
Now forget the trans issue for a minute (though note that doing this completely ignores the legal definition of rape and buggers up the statistics and data, which will affect the viability of initiatives like the one on domestic violence @DavidL was describing upthread).
But just listen to the underlying approach - if the accused "insists".
Excuse me. Since when should the accused be able to insist on how the police do their job?
Will the police close the case without investigation if the accused person "insists? Will they destroy evidence if the accused person "insists"? What else will they do if the accused person "insists"?
Someone should be saying to them: don't be so fucking stupid. Your job is to investigate. Concentrate on that. That means recording facts accurately. Not worrying about validating someone else's feelings. That is not your job.
It's the careering about from one half-arsed objective to another which leads to the police failing to focus on - and be halfway competent in - their key day job.
Once again, you seemed to be unduly interested in facts. Facts are hard, oppressive and don't take into account... feelings. And feelings are much more important than facts.
Accidentally having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA is factual. But dancing badly at the Notting Hill Carnival makes someone (who?) *feel* better. So that is the important bit.
Okay, I'll bite. Though I'm not sure why you have the propensity to bring race into so many things. It doesn't follow from Cyclefree's points.
Having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA - yes, highly problematic - suggests targeted policing. Police officers dancing badly at Notting Hill Carnival - a good thing. and certainly not something to be concerned about. The last 50 years in this country shows relations between the police and the black community to be frequently sour, which is inimical to both good policing and crime detection. Improving relations with young black people and winning their confidence is well worth doing, because those with confidence in the police are more likely to share information with them. Dancing while policing a carnival is pretty harmless in this context.
I tend to agree.
The bitter irony of the Stephen Port case is that for all the rainbow flags and dancing at Pride etc when it came to actual crimes against gay men the police were found badly wanting.
If it comes to a choice between waving flags or being bloody good detectives so that you catch killers, there really is only one choice.
The problem is that I am quite certain that the Pride attendance stuff gets a zillion times more management approval in the police than work to find, arrest, charge and convict gay bashers.
And that is the problem right there in a nutshell. Hence these lines in my header -
"Less on attitudinising and posing and slogans and saying the right things. More on doing the basic day job as well as possible."
The NHS has run out of mail order Lateral flow tests...
wow that's true.
I have for the past few weeks been ordering a kit every 24hrs because at some stage they will be needed regularly and also I wouldn't put it past the govt starting to charge for them (huge disincentive to test as this would be, if however it's mandatory...).
So I'm alright (jack) but how does this leave the "mandatory lateral flow" test events/venues?
There's still room in your cupboard despite all the bog rolls already in there?
Yes I am that guy with the hoarded LFTs.
It was more a hedge against introduction of a charging model but if you make LFTs mandatory what on earth did they think would happen to demand.
Red List and quarantine to be scrapped. Sensible move from Grant Shapps, a phrase I never expected to type.
A sop to the Tory rebels, and also harmless given that there's now clearly no value in trying to keep a handful of foreign Omicron cases out. Though FWIW, after this experience I do wonder if the Government will even try to keep the next variant (and there will inevitably be more) out in this fashion? It doesn't seem to have helped.
What countries could have done a few months ago is said: "From (insert date), nobody gets on or off a plane in our country unless they are vaccinated". Sure, there would have to be some exceptions, and it wouldn't have stopped Omicron. Maybe it would buy a little bit more time with variants. But it would certainly concentrate a few minds about getting vaccinated. And it wouldn't affect people's freedom too much - you anyway have to prove who you are to get on a plane, and there are other ways of leaving the country. Seems like a mostly pain-free but quite strong nudge to get people vaccinated. Of course the airline lobby would hate it.
btw Saturday was the first time ever that my vaccination status was really checked here in Germany. Going into Woolworths (apparently a "non-essential shop" so 2G rules now apply), somebody actually scanned the QR code on my Covpass app, and then checked if the name on my Personalausweis matched. So rules are finally being enforced.
Athletes run 80m, then have to slow to walking pace for 10m, allowing one of the athletes to change his shoes and jog to catch up, then they have to run the last 10m.
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
You were laughably claiming that Boris Johnson was one of the greatest PMs of all time not that long ago IIRC. You also even more laughably said that I was a "bad judge of character" because I didn't share your unquestioning fanboy view of Johnson.
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
I stand by that.
He should be ousted but he is one of the most consequential PMs of all time and still one of the best in my lifetime. Even if he has flaws, so do all PMs, they're all only human.
I'm not so naïve as to think that politicians are honest or are some sort of angel, or that Boris is unique in not being so.
Philip you really think he is "one of the best PMs" of your lifetime? You are 40 so we have Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining! Scotland is part of the island of GB like England, Scotland and Wales, geographically it is different to NI too, hence it is the UK of GB and NI, Scotland is just a part of GB.
Given the SNP failed to get a majority in May despite Brexit most Scots are clearly not that bothered by the Brexit deal either
FUDHY thinks that terrorism should be rewarded. Who’d’ve thunk that of a Franco fan?
Scots not bothered about Brexit?
“How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?”
Very well 0 Fairly well 21% Fairly badly 28% Very badly 42%
“In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?”
- As we know, Lab take the lead (+5 but note f/w dates).
- Johnson satisfaction ratings worst as PM.
- Starmer's largely unchanged but leads Johnson now on 'most capable PM' and several related attributes.
Tables and full writeup with trends to follow.
So Starmer improves and now leads in mostly everything. @HYUFD and @isam will have to find new material to post about
For now, if Boris' booster campaign works though and most of us have had our boosters by the New Year then I think the Tories will bounce back by the end of January
With all due respect @RochdalePioneers you don’t know what you’re talking about
Which element - specifically? I'm calling for the rules to be tightened up for 2022 to prevent the wholesale bending of the rules and open cheating we have seen throughout the season. I'm also pointing out that if the failure here was not adhering to both the letter and spirit of the rules by making bits up as we go along, that making more things up as we go along by simply making the race a few laps shorter is hardly a solution.
And I'm posting this as a Hamilton fan. His driving all season has been sensational. His ability do everything from scythe through a field to go banzai fast and protect the tyres is stunning. And I absolutely admire all he is doing when not driving.
But he lost because his team left him out on old tyres at the mercy of events. Red Bull gambled hard and it paid off. Mercedes once again screwed their strategy and got caught. Do we want to see hard and fair racing or not? Whole chunks of this season have been unfair - they've all be cheating and that includes Hamilton not staying within 10 car lengths on repeated occasions. Nobody is clean. So we mop up and do better next year.
I am no F1 expert, but watched the race yesterday.
Can you explain to me what exactly Red Bull were gambling? As far as I could ascertain they gambled precisely nothing, as they had nothing to lose by pitting.
It’s not a gamble if the stake are zero. It’s certainly not gambling hard.
As I say, I’m no expert.
As Red Bull were at zero risk of track position to bring in via a pit stop and change to softs, you could argue that Mercedes then knew they would do that so should have instantly brought Hamilton in to also switch to softs.
Why didn't this happen
2 reasons I can see, with 3 as a confounding factor.
i) Hamilton was already passed the pit lane as Mercedes realised the crash took place. ii) If Verstappen doesn't stop, track position is lost - though Hamilton being on softs, and Max not being on softs would mean Hamilton winning even if Hamilton was nominally behind Max on the track due to the extra pace. iii) Track position of lapped cars muddying the waters.
So the only valid game theory reason is i), with iii) meaning Mercedes didn't assess the game theory position correctly.
The big risk for Lewis, was that he gave up track position and the race went on to finish behind the safety car.
Mercedes were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Yep, realised that after I posted !
The cleanest solution would be for a rule change 'all lapped cars must allow cars that have lapped them through safely when directed by the race director' under the SC. Though even with that rule change Mercedes wouldn't have known whether the race might finish under SC or not. If the crash happens later the race finishes under safety. If the crash happens earlier it wouldn't. It was right on the brink, which made everything so bad for Mercedes.
I don't see why lapped cars are moved out of the way at all.
If Hamilton has overtaken lapped cars more than Max has then that's a position that he's gained on the track.
The reason Max was behind many of those lapped cars was because of his pit. Had he not pitted, he wouldn't have been behind those lapped cars, and if he'd pitted under normal circumstances he'd have to overtake them so why not do so after a SC?
If it was me I'd have a rule saying if you are lapped you retire (do lapped cars ever recover to the extent of ending with a placing anyway?). Actually, I'd have made yesterday a match race between RB and Mercedes in the first place. The actual result wasn't markedly less silly than a cup final going by default because one team's coach got stuck in traffic on the M1.
Yep it is common for lapped cars to get points. It is by no means unheard of for leader to lap ever other car in the race and twice the lead car has lapped everyone else twice - Jackie Stewart in the Spanish GP in 1969 and Damon Hill in the Australian GP in 1995.
What's the logic of allowing the lapped cars through after a safety car? Why not just keep them in the positions they were in when the SC came out?
The logic of getting the lapped cars out of the way, is so the leaders are all together at the restart.
When they didn’t used to let the lapped cars through, you had a very chaotic restart with blue flags waving at half the field, and there were incidents and accidents as people backed off to let the leaders through immediately.
Against allowing them through, and pertinent to yesterday’s incident, is that it takes an extra lap or so to get everyone in the right order. Yesterday they didn’t have that extra lap, and started making up rules on the spot.
Having watched sport avidly for 45 years I cannot think of anything comparable to yesterday. There are hundreds examples of mistakes, idiotic decisons by refs etc, but never a complete change to the rules of a sport that have been followed for decades and then to justify it by saying the race director can do what he likes. If that race had happened at any other time it would have finished under the safety car and that is why it is a sham.
I don't get this binary 'will there or won't there be more lockdowns' thing.
For me the obvious answer is lockdowns for the unvaccinated, in effect policed by a requirement to show a vaxport when entering public spaces.
What am I missing?
Good morning
The unity of the political establishment
For any restrictions on anti vaxxers to work the measures have to be agreed across the UK meaning Sturgeon, Drakeford , NI all need to be on board
It should happen but the politics makes it extremely unlikely
The only leader likely to be dragging his feet on this one is Johnson.
But in any event, I see no reason why it could not happen nation by nation.
House by house? Fine. You lock yourself in yours, I live according to English law pre-Mar 2020.
Infection fatality rate for Delta = 0.096% (DHSC July 2021).
Translation: flu, not plague.
Omicron: less severe.
I'm sorry if you've been terrified by the 21 months of psy-ops.
You need to explore the theory that governments have been lying since 23 March 2020. There are various documented corruption mechanisms and most of the mainstream press have been suppressed by the Ministry of Truth, sorry the 'Trusted News Initiative'.
What words in the phrase 'did not reduce all-cause mortality' do you not understand? That was the observation in the Pfizer BioNTech trial.
US courts have since released a few more 1,000 pp of Pfizer safety data from Feb. 2021 that the FDA wanted to keep secret until 2076. More to come ...
On Police Scotland, they are now saying that they will record rapes as having been carried by a woman if the accused person "insists".
Now forget the trans issue for a minute (though note that doing this completely ignores the legal definition of rape and buggers up the statistics and data, which will affect the viability of initiatives like the one on domestic violence @DavidL was describing upthread).
But just listen to the underlying approach - if the accused "insists".
Excuse me. Since when should the accused be able to insist on how the police do their job?
Will the police close the case without investigation if the accused person "insists? Will they destroy evidence if the accused person "insists"? What else will they do if the accused person "insists"?
Someone should be saying to them: don't be so fucking stupid. Your job is to investigate. Concentrate on that. That means recording facts accurately. Not worrying about validating someone else's feelings. That is not your job.
It's the careering about from one half-arsed objective to another which leads to the police failing to focus on - and be halfway competent in - their key day job.
Once again, you seemed to be unduly interested in facts. Facts are hard, oppressive and don't take into account... feelings. And feelings are much more important than facts.
Accidentally having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA is factual. But dancing badly at the Notting Hill Carnival makes someone (who?) *feel* better. So that is the important bit.
Okay, I'll bite. Though I'm not sure why you have the propensity to bring race into so many things. It doesn't follow from Cyclefree's points.
Having an arrest rate of 99% young black men under the PTA - yes, highly problematic - suggests targeted policing. Police officers dancing badly at Notting Hill Carnival - a good thing. and certainly not something to be concerned about. The last 50 years in this country shows relations between the police and the black community to be frequently sour, which is inimical to both good policing and crime detection. Improving relations with young black people and winning their confidence is well worth doing, because those with confidence in the police are more likely to share information with them. Dancing while policing a carnival is pretty harmless in this context.
I tend to agree.
The bitter irony of the Stephen Port case is that for all the rainbow flags and dancing at Pride etc when it came to actual crimes against gay men the police were found badly wanting.
If it comes to a choice between waving flags or being bloody good detectives so that you catch killers, there really is only one choice.
Agree, but ideally it shouldn't be either/or. In Brighton, the presence of police officers as participants, not just controllers, in Pride has definitely improved the relationship between the police and the gay community over the years. And this does lead to improvements in crime detection pertaining to that community.
The Greens -4% change is interesting. Some of that may just be MOE, but it hints to me that Starmer has firmed up the Labour base in the last week or so with some good performances. There was already a large anti-Tory bloc, but frustration with Labour may well have been driving the Green numbers artificially high. The Tories had already dropped, now Labour is consolidating.
is that because currently they can have their cake (EU passports, free movement, UK economic power, opportunities in UK and EU) and eat it......?
Probly. Why BJ and co don't offer a similar lash up to Scotland I don't know, would keep the ramshackle show on the road for another 20 years (or at least well past BJ's increasingly parlous tenure). Possibly something psychological to do with keeping the home island 'pure'.
Since when did Scotland have a land border with an EU nation and a history of terrorism like NI?
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining! Scotland is part of the island of GB like England, Scotland and Wales, geographically it is different to NI too, hence it is the UK of GB and NI, Scotland is just a part of GB.
Given the SNP failed to get a majority in May despite Brexit most Scots are clearly not that bothered by the Brexit deal either
FUDHY thinks that terrorism should be rewarded. Who’d’ve thunk that of a Franco fan?
Scots not bothered about Brexit?
“How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?”
Very well 0 Fairly well 21% Fairly badly 28% Very badly 42%
“In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?”
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
You were laughably claiming that Boris Johnson was one of the greatest PMs of all time not that long ago IIRC. You also even more laughably said that I was a "bad judge of character" because I didn't share your unquestioning fanboy view of Johnson.
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
I stand by that.
He should be ousted but he is one of the most consequential PMs of all time and still one of the best in my lifetime. Even if he has flaws, so do all PMs, they're all only human.
I'm not so naïve as to think that politicians are honest or are some sort of angel, or that Boris is unique in not being so.
Philip you really think he is "one of the best PMs" of your lifetime? You are 40 so we have Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May.
Who are the others?
39.
My list is Thatcher, Boris, Cameron, Major, Blair, Brown, May.
Thatcher is undeniably the best and in a league of her own.
Then as the OK ones I'd have Boris and Cameron. Not sure which order I'd rank those in the end. I sometimes alternate those around.
Then we get to the crap ones: Major - Tore the party asunder, made the mess of ratifying Maastricht without a Referendum setting up decades of divisions and leading eventually to Brexit and Blair's landslide. On the plus side he handed over the economy in a decent state to Blair. Blair - Massive election winner but everything he touched turned awful in the end, allowed Brown to destroy the economy. Brown - Destroyed the economy, handed over the nation with a trashed economy leading to a decade of austerity. Signed the Lisbon Treaty violating the referendum pledge again leading to Brexit. No redeeming features at all. May - What needs to be said?
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
You were laughably claiming that Boris Johnson was one of the greatest PMs of all time not that long ago IIRC. You also even more laughably said that I was a "bad judge of character" because I didn't share your unquestioning fanboy view of Johnson.
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
I stand by that.
He should be ousted but he is one of the most consequential PMs of all time and still one of the best in my lifetime. Even if he has flaws, so do all PMs, they're all only human.
I'm not so naïve as to think that politicians are honest or are some sort of angel, or that Boris is unique in not being so.
Philip you really think he is "one of the best PMs" of your lifetime? You are 40 so we have Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May.
Who are the others?
39.
My list is Thatcher, Boris, Cameron, Major, Blair, Brown, May.
Thatcher is undeniably the best and in a league of her own.
Then as the OK ones I'd have Boris and Cameron. Not sure which order I'd rank those in the end. I sometimes alternate those around.
Then we get to the crap ones: Major - Tore the party asunder, made the mess of ratifying Maastricht without a Referendum setting up decades of divisions and leading eventually to Brexit and Blair's landslide. On the plus side he handed over the economy in a decent state to Blair. Blair - Massive election winner but everything he touched turned awful in the end, allowed Brown to destroy the economy. Brown - Destroyed the economy, handed over the nation with a trashed economy leading to a decade of austerity. Signed the Lisbon Treaty violating the referendum pledge again leading to Brexit. No redeeming features at all. May - What needs to be said?
"Massive election winner but everything he touched turned awful"
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
You were laughably claiming that Boris Johnson was one of the greatest PMs of all time not that long ago IIRC. You also even more laughably said that I was a "bad judge of character" because I didn't share your unquestioning fanboy view of Johnson.
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
I stand by that.
He should be ousted but he is one of the most consequential PMs of all time and still one of the best in my lifetime. Even if he has flaws, so do all PMs, they're all only human.
I'm not so naïve as to think that politicians are honest or are some sort of angel, or that Boris is unique in not being so.
Philip you really think he is "one of the best PMs" of your lifetime? You are 40 so we have Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May.
Who are the others?
39.
My list is Thatcher, Boris, Cameron, Major, Blair, Brown, May.
Thatcher is undeniably the best and in a league of her own.
Then as the OK ones I'd have Boris and Cameron. Not sure which order I'd rank those in the end. I sometimes alternate those around.
Then we get to the crap ones: Major - Tore the party asunder, made the mess of ratifying Maastricht without a Referendum setting up decades of divisions and leading eventually to Brexit and Blair's landslide. On the plus side he handed over the economy in a decent state to Blair. Blair - Massive election winner but everything he touched turned awful in the end, allowed Brown to destroy the economy. Brown - Destroyed the economy, handed over the nation with a trashed economy leading to a decade of austerity. Signed the Lisbon Treaty violating the referendum pledge again leading to Brexit. No redeeming features at all. May - What needs to be said?
"Massive election winner but everything he touched turned awful"
F##king Kay Burley, a one woman danger to public health. Pushing anti-vaxxer AZN doesn't work and Omicron nothing to see here as nobody has died from it.....
Strictly is where it's at. Rose has been favourite for ages and is now odds on (!!) to win with AJ at 10s (bf) and John Whaite at 40s (bf).
I mean Rose was great but AJ and John both put in 10s performances which means on a coin toss the public would have to prefer Rose's story to the others. Which they very well might. We do like a story and Rose's is moving and genuinely admirable.
But then so is John/Johannes' and lest we forget apart from being a goddess AJ as a black woman also is breaking ground.
But on the dancing alone those odds are totally out of whack and I've backed AJ & John.
If Strictly was based on Dancing Ability then Chris Hollins wouldn't be a Champion.
Yes and that bloke from whichever boy band it was would be. I get it.
Just that the other two aren't without "stories" either although yes Rose's is compelling.
Rose is the total package. I think she's a cert but I'm pretty bad at Strictly.
I don't get this binary 'will there or won't there be more lockdowns' thing.
For me the obvious answer is lockdowns for the unvaccinated, in effect policed by a requirement to show a vaxport when entering public spaces.
What am I missing?
Good morning
The unity of the political establishment
For any restrictions on anti vaxxers to work the measures have to be agreed across the UK meaning Sturgeon, Drakeford , NI all need to be on board
It should happen but the politics makes it extremely unlikely
The only leader likely to be dragging his feet on this one is Johnson.
But in any event, I see no reason why it could not happen nation by nation.
House by house? Fine. You lock yourself in yours, I live according to English law pre-Mar 2020.
Infection fatality rate for Delta = 0.096% (DHSC July 2021).
Translation: flu, not plague.
Omicron: less severe.
I'm sorry if you've been terrified by the 21 months of psy-ops.
You need to explore the theory that governments have been lying since 23 March 2020. There are various documented corruption mechanisms and most of the mainstream press have been suppressed by the Ministry of Truth, sorry the 'Trusted News Initiative'.
What words in the phrase 'did not reduce all-cause mortality' do you not understand? That was the observation in the Pfizer BioNTech trial.
US courts have since released a few more 1,000 pp of Pfizer safety data from Feb. 2021 that the FDA wanted to keep secret until 2076. More to come ...
More nutty stuff.
Infection Fatality Rate for Delta is as per the previous ones. And the IFR dropped from over 1% pre-vaccines to 0.09% post-vaccines. Hospitalisation rate dropped from over 4% to under 1% as well Not with the change in variant, but with the vaccine rollout:
(Infection incidence for England taken from the ONS survey; hospitalisations in England lagged 10 days; fatalities in England lagged 20 days)
The rest of your stuff is just your certainty that there's a conspiracy where all the Governments of all the countries in the world are a part. The UK, US, France, Germany, Canada. And Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. And Austria, and Mexico, and Russia, and Estonia, and Latvia, and Australia, and New Zealand, and Belgium, and the Netherlands. And India, and Pakistan, and Bulgaria, and Bosnia. And South Africa, and Cyprus, and Croatia, and Brazil, and Chile, and Finland. Japan's part of it, and South Korea.
China and Taiwan are lining up together, which is impressive for a conspiracy. Russia and Ukraine both onboard.
I mean - if there was a conspiracy this wide and successful, you've got to give it to them. Weird how they let it all slip on social media, mind you.
England: Extension of vaccination rollout announced to take effect on Monday. Frequently you can book over the weekend because the system is updated and ready to go.
Scotland: Health secretary announces on Twitter extension of vaccination rollout for next day. Wife phones up the next day and told it's not happening until the next next day.
But it's Johnson who hasn't done any forward planning.
What's changed is the shortening of the remaining booster programme by more than half, according to Johnson's announcement. Time is of the essence, so any further acceleration they can make is worth it, even if they don't make the target, as long as it is orderly.
I think the broadcast had three objectives:
1. Get people to take Omicron seriously so they change their behaviour. 2. Make it clear we're entirely dependent on vaccination and voluntary measures. Johnson won't bring in any new NPIs. 3. Allow Johnson to take the initiative with the kind of showy programme he likes.
The key question is (2). Will it be enough?
Doubtful. As you say, collapsing 7 weeks of work into 3 at zero notice when Christmas and New Year are in those 3 is *challenging*. The pledge is that "Everyone eligible aged 18 and over in England will have the chance to get their booster before the New Year." That means the system has to have enough doses and appointment slots to do everyone in 3 weeks. Which is a million a day.
We need this to happen. But it seems unlikely. Sadly.
So given how challenging it is, if it happens then are you going to give credit where credit is due to the government?
Or will you just roll your eyes and move on?
What part of "its a ballsy strategy but they have to do it" is unclear. I support trying to get this done. I support the now herculean effort needed from the NHS who are going to sacrifice their christmas for us.
My other problem with this is Johnson trying to balance public safety with political expediency.
At the mid week presser Vallance and Whitty were saying reduce social interaction as much as possible - work from home, and yet when asked about Christmas parties Johnson responded with party hard but take a LFT first. If that isn't a mixed message I don't know what is.
Likewise last night. A laudible desire, but oversold for political capital.
The thing that has really stunned me about last night's broadcast from the party bunker was that nobody has thought that the people who need to organise and deliver these million jabs a day from today should be told first.
Finding out on the telly that you are about to be placed under a massive workload where you will literally be under siege by angry people all the way through Christmas (and thanks for volunteering for working every day) is Not Good.
Its like Peppa couldn't give a monkeys about other people. Can't be right...
Haven't they been talking about ramping up the rate of vaccination as soon as Omicron was named?
The announcement in this broadcast follows a fortnight of internal NHS work on working out how to ramp up the vaccination rate, including negotiations with GPs about what work to stop doing to enable needles to be plunged into arms instead.
The government have done precisely what you complain they have not done.
I posted last night that its a ballsy strategy which they had to do. My point is that they haven't told the people who are doing the actual injecting. At least thats what swathes of them are reporting on Twitter and elsewhere. I have no doubt that high level conversations have taken place with the NHS, but its not been with the people on the ground.
It's been all over the news for a couple of weeks. It's not exactly been secret.
That everyone would be jabbed in December? Fascinating that you think that has been all over the news for weeks when the PM announced it last night for the first time and then explained why he had changed the target from 7 weeks.
No one has set a goal of jabbing everyone in December.
That claim is a misrepresentation.
Though obvs the media will pretend it was the goal when jabs are still happening in Jan week 2, because they want a story.
"Everyone eligible aged 18 and over in England will have the chance to get their booster before the New Year."
"The chance to" meaning that everyone can get the jab this year. Which is a goal of jabbing everyone over 18.
Bit late coming back to this. The context from the Boris speech:
A fortnight ago I said we would offer every eligible adult a booster by the end of January.
Today, in light of this Omicron Emergency, I am bringing that target forward by a whole month.
Everyone eligible aged 18 and over in England will have the chance to get their booster before the New Year.
That's not a promise of everyone having a jab by Dec 31st - because of the "offer" and the "chance".
I'd say that those who want will have their jabs by perhaps 10/1/2022.
I remember when @Philip_Thompson told us that Johnson wasn't fat but just really muscular.
I never said that.
I said I found it entirely believable he was 17.5 stone when @kinabalu was saying there was no way he was that heavy.
That's not what you meant and we both know it
What was actually said -
"@kinabalu said: BoJo was NOT seventeen and a half stone (!) before the virus He's only 5 ft 8 inches tall. If he had weighed that much he would have looked like Mr Creosote.
17 and a half stone isn't anywhere near as much as that!
Besides he's quite athletic as well as being on the heavy side. Remember that muscle is heavier by volume than fat so two people of the same volume can weigh quite different amounts." 15 May 2020
@Philip_Thompson you're fooling nobody but yourself by claiming you're not partisan. Which is fine as it goes but it is hilarious to see you accusing me of being partisan.
There's a difference between opinionated and partisan.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted? Why did I oppose Plan B? Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular? Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise? Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem? Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
You were laughably claiming that Boris Johnson was one of the greatest PMs of all time not that long ago IIRC. You also even more laughably said that I was a "bad judge of character" because I didn't share your unquestioning fanboy view of Johnson.
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
I stand by that.
He should be ousted but he is one of the most consequential PMs of all time and still one of the best in my lifetime. Even if he has flaws, so do all PMs, they're all only human.
I'm not so naïve as to think that politicians are honest or are some sort of angel, or that Boris is unique in not being so.
You are stark raving mad, only a deluded halfwitted cretin could imagine Johnson is anything other than rank rotten.
Comments
As it is Scotland has also got a trade deal with the EU too anyway, Boris did not go for No Deal did he as some hardline Leavers wanted so stop complaining! Scotland is part of the island of GB like England, Scotland and Wales, geographically it is different to NI too, hence it is the UK of GB and NI, Scotland is just a part of GB.
Given the SNP failed to get a majority in May despite Brexit most Scots are clearly not that bothered by the Brexit deal either
But in any event, I see no reason why it could not happen nation by nation.
Rose!
I watched on Saturday, and Rose looked like a pro to me in a way the others don’t.
But I know sod all about dancing.
When my fiancé was a lady from Ghana, we used to get stopped on a weekly basis while driving. Not been stopped before or since.
The issue follows exactly from what Cyclefree is talking about - Finding and fixing the actual problems. Doing actual work.....
The bitter irony of the Stephen Port case is that for all the rainbow flags and dancing at Pride etc when it came to actual crimes against gay men the police were found badly wanting.
If it comes to a choice between waving flags or being bloody good detectives so that you catch killers, there really is only one choice.
If I'm partisan why have I called for Boris to be ousted?
Why did I oppose Plan B?
Why did I back Rashford's School Meals campaign before it was popular?
Why did I oppose the National Insurance tax rise?
Why have I said I want North Shropshire to vote Lib Dem?
Why did I oppose May's Brexit Deal?
You take the Labour line no matter what. I stick to my own opinions.
I have no idea about the rights and wrongs of the race but I'm amazed that a company with the reputation and resources of Mercedes are taking this further. Losing the championship will do them far less damage than looking like bad losers.
And yes F1 are missing a trick by not having annulled the race and instead having a one vs one head to head winner takes all.
The FIA maybe had a right to rob them of it, but they have been. The rules were not followed, instead the FIA gave Masi the right to create new rules on his whim and then said that there's no issue not following the rules because Masi can do as he pleases.
If they don't make a stink about this now then what's to stop the rot from getting deeper in the future? They need to make a stink to ensure this doesn't happen again, its one thing having unfortunate luck its another thing entirely having rules that did not exist be applied instead on somebodies whim.
LAB: 39% (+3)
CON: 34% (-1)
LDEM: 11% (+3)
GRN: 7% (-4)
via @IpsosMORI, 03 - 10 Dec
Chgs. w/ 04 Nov
Satisfaction with Johnson as PM lowest since he took office 🚨
Boris Johnson as PM
Satisfied 28% (-6)
Dissatisfied 65% (+4)
Dont know 7% (+2)
Net -37 = lowest as PM (was -27 last month)
(Changes from Nov)
Starmer leads Johnson on key attributes. 🚨
- In June Starmer led Johnson on 3 / 11 attributes.
- In December Starmer leads Johnson on 8 / 11.
In absolute terms trend (to follow) will show Starmer improving not just Johnson falling. https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1470334860099297281/photo/1
Mori have asked the question of PMs about 270 times since the 1997 GE. Only 19 times has a PM received a worse net score.
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1470334855242305539
You don't stick to your opinions. You are a weathervane, but a rather rusty one that takes a while to move. Congratulations, though on finally realising what many of us have known for years: Boris Johnson is unfit to be PM.
I'm as "pro-science" as anybody but even I reserve the right to dissent occasionally, e.g. when I point out that there's little or no evidence to suggest that low-level NPIs have made Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland any safer from Covid, compared to England which got rid of them, when you look at the course of the epidemic over the period from July to November. I may very well be wrong regardless, but at least I can point at the caseload numbers and say "where is the effect of restrictions hidden in all this lot?" The answer that comes back seems, basically, to be "NPIs must work, so the signal is obviously being masked by other unspecified factors, but we don't really know for sure what those are." I can provide figures, the other side of the argument offers guesswork. So how can they be certain that I'm wrong?
You are number 9057 in the queue. Your estimated wait time is about 5 minutes.
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 39% (+3)
CON: 34% (-1)
LDEM: 11% (+3)
GRN: 7% (-4)
via
@IpsosMORI
, 03 - 10 Dec
Chgs. w/ 04 Nov
I have for the past few weeks been ordering a kit every 24hrs because at some stage they will be needed regularly and also I wouldn't put it past the govt starting to charge for them (huge disincentive to test as this would be, if however it's mandatory...).
So I'm alright (jack) but how does this leave the "mandatory lateral flow" test events/venues?
When circs change, so do priorities.
- As we know, Lab take the lead (+5 but note f/w dates).
- Johnson satisfaction ratings worst as PM.
- Starmer's largely unchanged but leads Johnson now on 'most capable PM' and several related attributes.
Tables and full writeup with trends to follow.
So Starmer improves and now leads in mostly everything. @HYUFD and @isam will have to find new material to post about
When they didn’t used to let the lapped cars through, you had a very chaotic restart with blue flags waving at half the field, and there were incidents and accidents as people backed off to let the leaders through immediately.
Against allowing them through, and pertinent to yesterday’s incident, is that it takes an extra lap or so to get everyone in the right order. Yesterday they didn’t have that extra lap, and started making up rules on the spot.
Starmer 44% (+6)
Johnson 31% (-7)
This is a disaster for Johnson and Starmer is taking it to town
They come up with two complaints. That Verstappen overtook Hamilton behind the safety car, and that the SC procedure was wrong. The first one is laughable and got slapped away quickly. The second offers no viable way to somehow overturn the result. So why bother even going to the stewards? and now to the CAS?
Have the meeting. Vent. Come out and make a statement that the race director's actions have damaged the credibility of the sport and spoiled the show. But that as you can't undo history you aren't challenging the race but will be going to the FIA asking for rules and procedures to be tightened.
Instead they are embarrassing themselves. Because Toto and Horner are both whiny pricks.
I'm going to pop some money on Labour majority
It's not even as if the English marine border with France is much of one with the tunnels and the daily rowing regatta.
Satisfaction with Johnson as PM lowest since he took office 🚨
Boris Johnson as PM
Satisfied 28% (-6)
Dissatisfied 65% (+4)
Dont know 7% (+2)
Net -37 = lowest as PM (was -27 last month)
(Changes from Nov)
Johnson wins again! Now as unpopular as Jeremy Corbyn
He should be ousted but he is one of the most consequential PMs of all time and still one of the best in my lifetime. Even if he has flaws, so do all PMs, they're all only human.
I'm not so naïve as to think that politicians are honest or are some sort of angel, or that Boris is unique in not being so.
Could well and truly put the kibosh on the Government's plans for keeping masses of fully vaccinated individuals out of self-isolation if this becomes a chronic problem though. And that's essential. I know that there's a lot of scepticism about letting people use testing to avoid self-isolation, and understandably so. However, the Government must have genuine concerns about a pingdemic on steroids, given the transmissibility advantage of Omicron. And the one thing that's worse than letting a load of potential plague spreaders loose back into the community is having so many people locked up at once that basic services - not just healthcare but food supply and utilities - start to collapse for lack of workers.
Again, Mercedes found themselves on the wrong tyre and their challenger right up their arse on the correct tyre. So whilst they are challenging how the SC procedure was used what they really mean is that the race should not have restarted because their driver would lose if it did.
Surely you were there to see a race. Not to see a race prevented from happening because one team screwed their strategy up.
"Less on attitudinising and posing and slogans and saying the right things. More on doing the basic day job as well as possible."
This is basic common-sense frankly.
It was more a hedge against introduction of a charging model but if you make LFTs mandatory what on earth did they think would happen to demand.
btw Saturday was the first time ever that my vaccination status was really checked here in Germany. Going into Woolworths (apparently a "non-essential shop" so 2G rules now apply), somebody actually scanned the QR code on my Covpass app, and then checked if the name on my Personalausweis matched. So rules are finally being enforced.
Athletes run 80m, then have to slow to walking pace for 10m, allowing one of the athletes to change his shoes and jog to catch up, then they have to run the last 10m.
That's how this F1 malarkey works, yes?
I said I found it entirely believable he was 17.5 stone when @kinabalu was saying there was no way he was that heavy.
Who are the others?
https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1470091079521349638
Scots not bothered about Brexit?
“How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?”
Very well 0
Fairly well 21%
Fairly badly 28%
Very badly 42%
“In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?”
Right to leave 29%
Wrong to leave 60%
(YouGov/The Times, 1-2 December, Scottish respondents)
Just a bubble issue though
Infection fatality rate for Delta = 0.096% (DHSC July 2021).
Translation: flu, not plague.
Omicron: less severe.
I'm sorry if you've been terrified by the 21 months of psy-ops.
You need to explore the theory that governments have been lying since 23 March 2020. There are various documented corruption mechanisms and most of the mainstream press have been suppressed by the Ministry of Truth, sorry the 'Trusted News Initiative'.
What words in the phrase 'did not reduce all-cause mortality' do you not understand?
That was the observation in the Pfizer BioNTech trial.
US courts have since released a few more 1,000 pp of Pfizer safety data from Feb. 2021 that the FDA wanted to keep secret until 2076. More to come ...
Like NI most Scots in most polls want to stay in the UK even post Brexit
My list is Thatcher, Boris, Cameron, Major, Blair, Brown, May.
Thatcher is undeniably the best and in a league of her own.
Then as the OK ones I'd have Boris and Cameron. Not sure which order I'd rank those in the end. I sometimes alternate those around.
Then we get to the crap ones:
Major - Tore the party asunder, made the mess of ratifying Maastricht without a Referendum setting up decades of divisions and leading eventually to Brexit and Blair's landslide. On the plus side he handed over the economy in a decent state to Blair.
Blair - Massive election winner but everything he touched turned awful in the end, allowed Brown to destroy the economy.
Brown - Destroyed the economy, handed over the nation with a trashed economy leading to a decade of austerity. Signed the Lisbon Treaty violating the referendum pledge again leading to Brexit. No redeeming features at all.
May - What needs to be said?
ROTFLMAO
https://youtu.be/M-Kpzhn-zQ4
Infection Fatality Rate for Delta is as per the previous ones. And the IFR dropped from over 1% pre-vaccines to 0.09% post-vaccines.
Hospitalisation rate dropped from over 4% to under 1% as well
Not with the change in variant, but with the vaccine rollout:
(Infection incidence for England taken from the ONS survey; hospitalisations in England lagged 10 days; fatalities in England lagged 20 days)
"FDA wanted to keep secret until 2076": myth https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/11/19/fda-2076-vaccine-data/
The rest of your stuff is just your certainty that there's a conspiracy where all the Governments of all the countries in the world are a part. The UK, US, France, Germany, Canada. And Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
And Austria, and Mexico, and Russia, and Estonia, and Latvia, and Australia, and New Zealand, and Belgium, and the Netherlands. And India, and Pakistan, and Bulgaria, and Bosnia. And South Africa, and Cyprus, and Croatia, and Brazil, and Chile, and Finland.
Japan's part of it, and South Korea.
China and Taiwan are lining up together, which is impressive for a conspiracy. Russia and Ukraine both onboard.
I mean - if there was a conspiracy this wide and successful, you've got to give it to them. Weird how they let it all slip on social media, mind you.
At the mid week presser Vallance and Whitty were saying reduce social interaction as much as possible - work from home, and yet when asked about Christmas parties Johnson responded with party hard but take a LFT first. If that isn't a mixed message I don't know what is.
Likewise last night. A laudible desire, but oversold for political capital.
A fortnight ago I said we would offer every eligible adult a booster by the end of January.
Today, in light of this Omicron Emergency, I am bringing that target forward by a whole month.
Everyone eligible aged 18 and over in England will have the chance to get their booster before the New Year.
That's not a promise of everyone having a jab by Dec 31st - because of the "offer" and the "chance".
I'd say that those who want will have their jabs by perhaps 10/1/2022.
"@kinabalu said:
BoJo was NOT seventeen and a half stone (!) before the virus He's only 5 ft 8 inches tall. If he had weighed that much he would have looked like Mr Creosote.
Is he spinning yet another self-serving yarn?"
"@Philip_Thompson said:
17 and a half stone isn't anywhere near as much as that!
Besides he's quite athletic as well as being on the heavy side. Remember that muscle is heavier by volume than fat so two people of the same volume can weigh quite different amounts."
15 May 2020
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/2856928/#Comment_2856928