Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
It's almost pitiful hearing you whine on. "People aren't going out to party when they are sick with Covid, it's so unfair, what about my liberty"
Are you really so ignorant that you still don’t understand many people get a positive result but have no symptoms?
Define "many" as a percentage. With a peer-reviewed or at least credible medical source for your percentage.
"Many people who are positive aren't sick. So they could go out and party. So it's all a lie"
“Infected people who show no symptoms might be contributing significantly to transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, given that they account for 40.5% of confirmed infections worldwide, according to a study published online Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open.
The researchers pooled data from 77 earlier studies involving a total of 19,884 individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections. They found that among infected people in the general community, about 40% were asymptomatic, as were 54% of infected pregnant women, 53% of infected air or cruise travelers, 48% of infected nursing home residents or staff and 30% of infected healthcare workers or hospitalized patients.”
Note the use of language. Not “mild symptoms”, or “like a cold”. Asymptomatic.
Much appreciated. Note the line "contributing significantly to transmission". So to go back to why people who test positive are behaving themselves much to your upset, its because they aren't Charlie Uniform you know the rest - s. They may not be sick, but they know they are in the minority.
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
It's almost pitiful hearing you whine on. "People aren't going out to party when they are sick with Covid, it's so unfair, what about my liberty"
If people aren't going out when they are sock because they don't want to then that's utterly reasonable. Never objected to that.
If people aren't going out when they're entirely asymptomatic or have the sniffles, because it's illegal for them to do so, that's a different matter.
That you want to conflate being positive with being sick even if someone is asymptomatic reveals your own zealotry.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
Frost's resignation puts Brexit higher up the news agenda than it has been for a fair while.
Just in time for the planned chaos of 1st January. Perhaps the lights going out across Europe will squash demand enough so that our part-built border infrastructure can cope with the huge burdens we are about toimpose on it.
Frost's resignation puts Brexit higher up the news agenda than it has been for a fair while.
Just in time for the planned chaos of 1st January. Perhaps the lights going out across Europe will squash demand enough so that our part-built border infrastructure can cope with the huge burdens we are about toimpose on it.
The Express appear to have only just clocked that Brexit means you incur extra charges when sending stuff from the UK to Spain.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
It's almost pitiful hearing you whine on. "People aren't going out to party when they are sick with Covid, it's so unfair, what about my liberty"
If people aren't going out when they are sock because they don't want to then that's utterly reasonable. Never objected to that.
If people aren't going out when they're entirely asymptomatic or have the sniffles, because it's illegal for them to do so, that's a different matter.
That you want to conflate being positive with being sick even if someone is asymptomatic reveals your own zealotry.
Happy to be called a zealot by you. Read back what you have just posted. You are objecting to people with Covid not being allowed to go out and infect people.
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Don't be disingenuous. Under May's deal there was no such thing as a UK trading zone.
What you are missing is an important point of principle.
In shutting down the hospitality sector (regardless of whether de jure or de facto) government is taking a massive step beyond the usual bounds of its authority.
It is important to preserve the principle that this is limited to the minimum necessary. I’m not arguing that what they are doing is right or proportionate, but it is clear that no case can be made for restricting outside activity from a public health perspective.
It may not be economically rational, in practice, for hospitality to operate but it is important that the private sector makes that decision rather than government bans it
They haven't (yet) banned it. But the simple truth is that people are locking themselves down. They have Covid, they live with someone who has Covid, or they want to avoid Covid so that they can have Christmas.
It isn't the government doing this, it's Covid.
That’s what I was trying to convey with “de jure or de facto”. I think people are (rationally) making that choice due to isolation rules and government mood music.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear
No no, it was clear. I am in full agreement. Whats more if they try to lock us down - especially this side of Christmas - I think there will be mass disobedience, such is the level of trust in the clown car government and Peppa himself.
People aren't stupid. Anecdotally most people can now see Covid somewhere near them. They have it, or someone they know has it - this is different to a month ago even with the months of 30-40k new cases a day. That was background noise, Covid is now front and centre in people's lived experience.
Yes there are still the "fuck Covid, I don't care, lets do this" people. An old mate of mine really upset that his team keeps having PL games cancelled because other teams have too many players off. A minority though, and the brainier Corbyn brother saying "burn the MPs" is really helping, as who wants to be associated with that?
But most people get it. They want Christmas - *need* Christmas. So even if they and theirs aren't sick they are pulling the plug and hiding away so that Christmas happens. Because only a Philip is going to still do Christmas whilst infected to try and kill off Granny.
Apart from the jibe at the government I agree. My view is the people would ignore whatever stripe of government tried a lockdown. They are done being bossed around and are making their own choices
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
It’s not fair to call Charles a keyboard warrior but I hadn’t taken him for someone who contradicted someone who clearly knows what the reality is (as it’s part of their day to day job).
January is going to be fun for imports and exports and the person responsible is running away roughly 3 weeks before the complete lack of implementation becomes obvious.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
It's almost pitiful hearing you whine on. "People aren't going out to party when they are sick with Covid, it's so unfair, what about my liberty"
If people aren't going out when they are sock because they don't want to then that's utterly reasonable. Never objected to that.
If people aren't going out when they're entirely asymptomatic or have the sniffles, because it's illegal for them to do so, that's a different matter.
That you want to conflate being positive with being sick even if someone is asymptomatic reveals your own zealotry.
Happy to be called a zealot by you. Read back what you have just posted. You are objecting to people with Covid not being allowed to go out and infect people.
So what? Yes I'm suggesting that!
People spread respiratory illnesses on a daily basis.
Are you suggesting it should be against the law for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their house so they don't infect others?
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Under May’s deal the entire of the UK was stuck in the “backstop” with no plausible way out.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
Frost's resignation puts Brexit higher up the news agenda than it has been for a fair while.
Just in time for the planned chaos of 1st January. Perhaps the lights going out across Europe will squash demand enough so that our part-built border infrastructure can cope with the huge burdens we are about toimpose on it.
The Express appear to have only just clocked that Brexit means you incur extra charges when sending stuff from the UK to Spain.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
It’s not fair to call Charles a keyboard warrior but I hadn’t taken him for someone who contradicted someone who clearly knows what the reality is (as it’s part of their day to day job).
January is going to be fun for imports and exports and the person responsible is running away roughly 3 weeks before the complete lack of implementation becomes obvious.
My post was on the narrow point about sovereign. I’m happy to “own” that I don’t know the precise status of implementation planning although given the amount of other stuff the government has had going on over their last 2 years, plus their own background level of competence, I’d assume it’s not as advanced as one might like
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Under May’s deal the entire of the UK was stuck in the “backstop” with no plausible way out.
Which was fine as it would have been far less disruptive to businesses and individuals. The last 12 months have confirmed that nobody actually wants this "divergence" in regulations beyond a few Thatcherite hacks in Whitehall. Businesses just want consistency.
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Don't be disingenuous. Under May's deal there was no such thing as a UK trading zone.
One wicket down already. Hameed out for a duck.
Under May's deal you did not need an export license to move products from part of the UK to another. Under Peppa's deal you do.
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Under May’s deal the entire of the UK was stuck in the “backstop” with no plausible way out.
Which was fine as it would have been far less disruptive to businesses and individuals. The last 12 months have confirmed that nobody actually wants this "divergence" in regulations beyond a few Thatcherite hacks in Whitehall. Businesses just want consistency.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
No. It is not Lockdowns or similar measures that delay cancer treatment, it is the pandemic that does so. Chris Whitty explains it to one of the hard of thinking Tory backbenchers here:
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Under May’s deal the entire of the UK was stuck in the “backstop” with no plausible way out.
Which was fine as it would have been far less disruptive to businesses and individuals. The last 12 months have confirmed that nobody actually wants this "divergence" in regulations beyond a few Thatcherite hacks in Whitehall. Businesses just want consistency.
Businesses just don’t want extra admin/ paperwork, especially paperwork that can go missing or be wrong which is processed by people who take great pleasure (the French) in hunting for every mistake because it’s in their (the French) interests to do so.
Re the comparison about Johnson and Peter Sellers' performance in "Being There" below, it might be helpful to describe the performance of his character, rather than just the characte, as the comparison.
Like Sellers, Johnson is actually quite an intelligent man who has very little fixed in his life, and seems happiest of all playing an ingenue finding himself in a situation of power.
The repeatedly "random" and chaotic speeches after dinner that Jeremy Vine described, apparently in fact each carefully structured for the same effect each time, are very much part of this same syndrome of an observant and perceptive, if not necessarily very profound man, being most at home playing an ingenue hitting the corridors of power.
I highly recommend that film, including for both parts of that current context - a very interesting one.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
No. It is not Lockdowns or similar measures that delay cancer treatment, it is the pandemic that does so. Chris Whitty explains it to one of the hard of thinking Tory backbenchers here:
I wonder if Saudi Arabia, pencilled in as number two race, will be updated. High speeds, close walls, and blind corners are overdoing it there, I think.
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Under May’s deal the entire of the UK was stuck in the “backstop” with no plausible way out.
Which was fine as it would have been far less disruptive to businesses and individuals. The last 12 months have confirmed that nobody actually wants this "divergence" in regulations beyond a few Thatcherite hacks in Whitehall. Businesses just want consistency.
Less sovereignty though.
So what. Can I eat "sovereignty"? Can I trade it? Will it keep me afloat when my business goes bust? Or is it just some nebulous concept that means nothing outside of a Tory WhatsApp group?
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Under May’s deal the entire of the UK was stuck in the “backstop” with no plausible way out.
No plausible way out? But all the Brexiteer Tory MPs insisted there was a techno border solution for Ireland...
Anyway, back to sovereignty. You know the mindset of Tory backbenchers more than I do. Does the abolition of the UK as a trading zone worry any of the people who make claims about how we have gained sovereignty? For the first time in the history of the union between the islands of Britain and Ireland we need paperwork and licenses to trade. Surely that isn't something they think is a gain vs the status quo ante?
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
Under May’s deal the entire of the UK was stuck in the “backstop” with no plausible way out.
Which was fine as it would have been far less disruptive to businesses and individuals. The last 12 months have confirmed that nobody actually wants this "divergence" in regulations beyond a few Thatcherite hacks in Whitehall. Businesses just want consistency.
Less sovereignty though.
In Northern Ireland Sovereignty hasn’t changed the ECJ still has a say.
And if the ECJ have a say in Northern Ireland that means the ECJ still has a say in the UK or we’ve just quietly separated NI even further from the rest of the UK
And wait to the day the unionists pick up on the fact
The tragedy of @DavidGHFrost and those who think like him is that they can't see that the high tax burden they dislike is in part the result of the hard Brexit they chose 1/4
That they won't acknowledge that wholesale deregulation - which is why they wanted to leave the EU - is not the Brexit that was sold to millions of Leave voters and not a viable political strategy for the Conservative Party 2/4
And that they won't face up to the fact that we can walk away from the Northern Ireland Protocol or we can have a zero tariff deal with the EU + good relations with the Biden administration but we can't have both 3/4
Sooner or later, someone is going to have to face up to these choices rather than resigning when confronted with them 4/4
Rare for me to agree with a Tory, but this is fundamentally it - and why lots of people pointed out Brexit was almost certainly a bad idea even before 2016 - and continued to say the harder versions of it were, rather than a compromise. Because you couldn't reconcile the contradictions of what different groups of people who voted for it or championed it wanted from it. Economically, Lord Frost may be right - the only version that makes any real sense once you've broken away is the ultra-competitive low tax one. But that's impossible and a terrible political option for a variety of reasons, from NI and the difficulties of a US trade deal, to Russian and Chinese money being less politically acceptable, greater international moves on tax avoidance and climate change, us demanding European-style health and social provision with an ageing population, to 'levelling up' (i.e. evening up the inequaliies between wealthy bits of the country) needing a certain amount of upfront intervention and spending to get it off the ground.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
What you are missing is an important point of principle.
In shutting down the hospitality sector (regardless of whether de jure or de facto) government is taking a massive step beyond the usual bounds of its authority.
It is important to preserve the principle that this is limited to the minimum necessary. I’m not arguing that what they are doing is right or proportionate, but it is clear that no case can be made for restricting outside activity from a public health perspective.
It may not be economically rational, in practice, for hospitality to operate but it is important that the private sector makes that decision rather than government bans it
They haven't (yet) banned it. But the simple truth is that people are locking themselves down. They have Covid, they live with someone who has Covid, or they want to avoid Covid so that they can have Christmas.
It isn't the government doing this, it's Covid.
That’s what I was trying to convey with “de jure or de facto”. I think people are (rationally) making that choice due to isolation rules and government mood music.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear
It's not just isolation rules (which are unenforced) but the risk of infecting vulnerable members of the family. My eighty something parents are triple jabbed but I wouldn't go near them if I were test positive, even if asymptomatic. Neither would I go near other peoples similarly aged parents.
Yes but taking a choice to head out and see vulnerable people and partying down a nightclub full of young people are two different decisions. Your (unable to wfh) work might not want you in. You don't want to see your 90 yr old nan But should you legally be restricted from a big night out in Blackpool with your mates ?
Anyone looked into what the likely total rate of deaths is for 2021? It looked like 2020 had a few tens of thousands additional deaths than a normal year but it was still roughly in line with historical averages. That's what all this goes down to - spending money on lockdowns to prevent avoidable deaths + accepting hard to quantify long term harm to mental health to do so. Wheres the calculations? Wheres the impact assessments? I'm not following this in the way that some people do, but all I can see is reports that deal with worst case scenarios and lead to conclusions LOCKDOWN NOW. CIRCUIT BREAKER NOW. Policy just seems to be driven by guesswork and panic. To be fair, it is in line with the precedent set since 2010 by the government, just act on gut instinct, disregard the experts unless they have useful conclusions or you can blame them for something going wrong, etc etc. But now the pandemic has been going on for 2 years. So you can start to take an objective view on further measures. Going back to my original speculation about the pandemic being the ruin of us; this can well occur due to the societal inability to accept excess avoidable deaths and to throw every resource of the state at it. A battle that cannot be won. Collective safetyism being the parasite that destroys the host. So many sacred cows slashed in pursuit of this: freedom, control over lives, defacto ID cards, the 'best interests of the child'; etc etc. So many Rubicons crossed.
I was out in Newcastle last night and it was bouncing. All of the pubs and restaurants were full as were the streets. The predilection of your northern lasses to focus on dressing up and not on keeping warm was very evident too but there was no need to sit outside unless you wanted to smoke.
I must confess that I am somewhat confused as to the current state of play. We also went to the Everyman cinema (which was great). You were supposed to wear your mask moving around but you didn't need to when sitting down in the cinema.
My kids went on to the junkyard crazy golf. Not seen them yet this morning but they got home at 2.30. It was quite a long way from what @Cyclefree is describing.
Rare for me to agree with a Tory, but this is fundamentally it - and why lots of people pointed out Brexit was almost certainly a bad idea even before 2016 - and continued to say the harder versions of it were, rather than a compromise. Because you couldn't reconcile the contradictions of what different groups of people who voted for it or championed it wanted from it.
Other people are making similar points.
The Tory Brexit headbangers could never get the public to support their low tax and spend economic vision, but Brexit was sold as the opposite (more cash for the NHS!!)
The contradictions could never be reconciled. It is amazing it has taken this long for them to explode
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
After the weakness of May, Lord Frost was the man who secured a proper Brexit and got the EU to back down on all manners of areas. He even got the EU to roll back on its red line that it would never change its own internal law to address Brexit. Amazing that the very arch-Remainers who backed the EU up on that position are now saying Frost was useless as a negotiator.
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
Yep. He did such an ace job, and got the EU to yield to our primacy so much that we accepted a deal that broke up the UK as a trading nation.
Having to get an export license and complete customs paperwork to "export" from one part of the UK to the other really is us sticking our newly found sovrinty up the Euro arse. Huzzah!
And if the representatives of NI decide they don’t like that structure they have the ability to overturn it.
Under May’s proposal no one in the UK had that ability
Under the May deal NI remained part of the UK trading zone - the idea that her deal would have caused the upset that abolishing the UK as a trading zone has caused is for the birds.
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
It’s not fair to call Charles a keyboard warrior but I hadn’t taken him for someone who contradicted someone who clearly knows what the reality is (as it’s part of their day to day job).
January is going to be fun for imports and exports and the person responsible is running away roughly 3 weeks before the complete lack of implementation becomes obvious.
My post was on the narrow point about sovereign. I’m happy to “own” that I don’t know the precise status of implementation planning although given the amount of other stuff the government has had going on over their last 2 years, plus their own background level of competence, I’d assume it’s not as advanced as one might like
I don't consider you to be any kind of warrior, don't worry about that. And ok lets set aside our laughable lack of preparedness for the mass of red tape cost and bureaucracy we are about to impose on ourselves, and talk about sovereignty.
Our Brexit deal cut off part of the UK. We went from being able to trade freely within not just the UK but the CTA, to being able to trade freely within the EEC/EC/EU/EEA to being restricted only to free trade within GB.
Even if we set aside the rest of the CTA for a minute, I now need to apply for an export license and complete paperwork declaring my intentions to move products from our Shepton Mallet warehouse to customers in NI. In our own country. It is far easier to allow a partner based in Dublin to make that trade whereas before Brexit it almost certainly would have been a UK company in the north trading with the whole island.
Brexit lost us sovereignty over our own country. How can you and yours continue to champion the great gains made by your Brexit deal in this area when we have lost our ability to freely trade with ourselves in our own country.
Again, does Ireland not matter? Not the Republic, the North. Because if not - and that is the direct read of what you and your say and do with regards to this matter - then what is sovereignty to you? Sovereignty of what? It isn't of the UK as you ceded part of that. What then?
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
Other people are going to die either way. Respiratory viruses spread and you're delusional if you think otherwise.
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
Again, does Ireland not matter? Not the Republic, the North. Because if not - and that is the direct read of what you and your say and do with regards to this matter - then what is sovereignty to you? Sovereignty of what? It isn't of the UK as you ceded part of that. What then?
Quick unsolicited advice on what next after Frost. Three ways to do replacement if you are Number 10 - path they choose will tell you a lot about nature of political operation left in building 1/
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
What you are missing is an important point of principle.
In shutting down the hospitality sector (regardless of whether de jure or de facto) government is taking a massive step beyond the usual bounds of its authority.
It is important to preserve the principle that this is limited to the minimum necessary. I’m not arguing that what they are doing is right or proportionate, but it is clear that no case can be made for restricting outside activity from a public health perspective.
It may not be economically rational, in practice, for hospitality to operate but it is important that the private sector makes that decision rather than government bans it
They haven't (yet) banned it. But the simple truth is that people are locking themselves down. They have Covid, they live with someone who has Covid, or they want to avoid Covid so that they can have Christmas.
It isn't the government doing this, it's Covid.
That’s what I was trying to convey with “de jure or de facto”. I think people are (rationally) making that choice due to isolation rules and government mood music.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear
It's not just isolation rules (which are unenforced) but the risk of infecting vulnerable members of the family. My eighty something parents are triple jabbed but I wouldn't go near them if I were test positive, even if asymptomatic. Neither would I go near other peoples similarly aged parents.
Yes but taking a choice to head out and see vulnerable people and partying down a nightclub full of young people are two different decisions. Your (unable to wfh) work might not want you in. You don't want to see your 90 yr old nan But should you legally be restricted from a big night out in Blackpool with your mates ?
I haven't called for any lockdown measures, beyond Plan B, and I am not a supporter of vaxxports either, though not frothy mouthed about them. I am just being careful, as indeed many others clearly are too.
In many ways this is a bigger problem for hospitality than rules as outlined in the header. January tends to be a quiet month for hospitality anyway, but it will be very quiet this year. It is going to need support no matter what.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
Other people are going to die either way. Respiratory viruses spread and you're delusional if you think otherwise.
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
No, lets not be distracted by your straw men and go back to the first line. "Other people are going to die anyway". Not of Covid if they don't catch it from someone infected at a party. And not necessarily this winter.
But that's your pitch. People who are infected should go party. If they infect people who then die so what as "other people are going to die either way.
For your liberty.
And they considered what Marcus Fysh said to be overly extreme.
I was out in Newcastle last night and it was bouncing. All of the pubs and restaurants were full as were the streets. The predilection of your northern lasses to focus on dressing up and not on keeping warm was very evident too but there was no need to sit outside unless you wanted to smoke.
I must confess that I am somewhat confused as to the current state of play. We also went to the Everyman cinema (which was great). You were supposed to wear your mask moving around but you didn't need to when sitting down in the cinema.
My kids went on to the junkyard crazy golf. Not seen them yet this morning but they got home at 2.30. It was quite a long way from what @Cyclefree is describing.
you can see what Rishi decided that the warm climes of Sunny California just werent for him, just up the A1 he's got a veritable cornucopia of delights to while away those 12 days of Christmas...
I see Lord frost has resigned, FWIW I am not sure he ever achieved much,,,
Of course these are the same people that think less of people for being "white and middle aged". Such talk belies how much they detest the native British majority, or the thought of these people governing the country. Far better for our fate to be determined by those more sophisticated nationalities in Brussels.
They moved quickly enough on this one...it's almost as though they're trying to distract from something else.
They are doing their job. The evidence is clear - the more intelligent Corbyn brother telling lunatics to burn out MPs. So they rightly quickly arrested him.
The question of course is that if they are willing to do their jobs to protect public safety, why not the same when it comes to Downing Street where the evidence is also clear?
The BBC have cancelled their plans to show highlights of the Ashes series, on the basis that there aren't any.
'We knew it would be tough,' said Random Thick Posho What Does Comms 'but we didn't think the only good bit would be Jos Buttler's comically inept wicketkeeping. We thought at least a few Aussie wickets might go down to good cricket not silly run outs.'
BT Sport, asked for comment, said they would continue to show the Tests because the important thing was they had got rid of all the racists in their commentary team, apart from the Aussies themselves.
The England cricket team, approached for comment, could not be found, on the basis that what they're playing is barely cricket.
The Aussies are too busy laughing to say anything.
Quick unsolicited advice on what next after Frost. Three ways to do replacement if you are Number 10 - path they choose will tell you a lot about nature of political operation left in building 1/
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
Option 4: Is Gove not somewhat underemployed at the moment? He has impeccable credentials with the head bangers but is clever enough to be pragmatic and get this sorted. He may consider it a demotion now that the caravan has moved on somewhat but it could perhaps be combined with his other duties.
I wonder if Saudi Arabia, pencilled in as number two race, will be updated. High speeds, close walls, and blind corners are overdoing it there, I think.
That’s a very tight schedule, to get in 23 races between mid-March and November. Four races in July, and four more in September.
Pretty sure there will be some work on the Saudi track over the winter, that was really quite dangerous in places.
Reaction from a (senior) EU diplomat: “Until now, every British Brexit negotiator has resigned or was sacked. Is it because Brexit is bad for Britain and leaves UK negotiators with the impossible task of squaring the circle?” Ouch. https://twitter.com/adamparsons/status/1472310341828755460
Since everyone else seems to have a different covid reality: all the young people I know are: a) broadly abiding by the rules b) worried about the virus (more for their parents/grandparents), c) very keen to get boostered asap d) cancelling Christmas meetups to protect the ones they really care about e) fine with new restrictions, provided they can hunker down with family for Christmas
The tragedy of @DavidGHFrost and those who think like him is that they can't see that the high tax burden they dislike is in part the result of the hard Brexit they chose 1/4
That they won't acknowledge that wholesale deregulation - which is why they wanted to leave the EU - is not the Brexit that was sold to millions of Leave voters and not a viable political strategy for the Conservative Party 2/4
And that they won't face up to the fact that we can walk away from the Northern Ireland Protocol or we can have a zero tariff deal with the EU + good relations with the Biden administration but we can't have both 3/4
Sooner or later, someone is going to have to face up to these choices rather than resigning when confronted with them 4/4
Rare for me to agree with a Tory, but this is fundamentally it - and why lots of people pointed out Brexit was almost certainly a bad idea even before 2016 - and continued to say the harder versions of it were, rather than a compromise. Because you couldn't reconcile the contradictions of what different groups of people who voted for it or championed it wanted from it. Economically, Lord Frost may be right - the only version that makes any real sense once you've broken away is the ultra-competitive low tax one. But that's impossible and a terrible political option for a variety of reasons, from NI and the difficulties of a US trade deal, to Russian and Chinese money being less politically acceptable, greater international moves on tax avoidance and climate change, us demanding European-style health and social provision with an ageing population, to 'levelling up' (i.e. evening up the inequaliies between wealthy bits of the country) needing a certain amount of upfront intervention and spending to get it off the ground.
You don't have to look too far into history to see that most "populists" turn out to be people wanting things that by any objective standard would be massively unpopular, and hence their populism is made of other, unrelated stuff that becomes the cloak beneath which they hope to smuggle in the stuff they really want.
Option 4: Is Gove not somewhat underemployed at the moment? He has impeccable credentials with the head bangers but is clever enough to be pragmatic and get this sorted. He may consider it a demotion now that the caravan has moved on somewhat but it could perhaps be combined with his other duties.
Gove is perhaps the only person who might make a go of it, and wouldn't immediately enrage the headbangers, but...
Can BoZo be sure Gove isn't going to reprise his previous role and state "I was right, BoZo isn't up to the job" ?
Quick unsolicited advice on what next after Frost. Three ways to do replacement if you are Number 10 - path they choose will tell you a lot about nature of political operation left in building 1/
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
Option 4: Is Gove not somewhat underemployed at the moment? He has impeccable credentials with the head bangers but is clever enough to be pragmatic and get this sorted. He may consider it a demotion now that the caravan has moved on somewhat but it could perhaps be combined with his other duties.
I think we need to see how the death and hospitalisation rate for Omicron compares to the existing endemic coronaviruses in triple vaxxed individuals. If it's not statistically different, remove all restrictions including isolation for the triple vaccinated infected
Health Secretary tells @SkyNews that “we will do what is necessary” but “the situation is very different in terms of our defences” when compared with Christmas last year.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
Other people are going to die either way. Respiratory viruses spread and you're delusional if you think otherwise.
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
No, lets not be distracted by your straw men and go back to the first line. "Other people are going to die anyway". Not of Covid if they don't catch it from someone infected at a party. And not necessarily this winter.
But that's your pitch. People who are infected should go party. If they infect people who then die so what as "other people are going to die either way.
For your liberty.
And they considered what Marcus Fysh said to be overly extreme.
It is attitudes like @Philip_Thompson that make it far less safe to socialise. I won't be going anywhere outside work (and wearing an FFP3 there), apart from my brother on Boxing Day to see my folks. There are too many reckless idiots about.
I've been sent it by three different people. Short synopsis: the modelling sage has done presents a worst case scenario, and does so at the behest of whoever commissioned the model. But it makes no comment on the likelihood of that scenario. In effect, a policy has been decided (I.e. further lockdowns) and modellers at sage have been asked to produce the models to justify this.
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
Other people are going to die either way. Respiratory viruses spread and you're delusional if you think otherwise.
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
No, lets not be distracted by your straw men and go back to the first line. "Other people are going to die anyway". Not of Covid if they don't catch it from someone infected at a party. And not necessarily this winter.
But that's your pitch. People who are infected should go party. If they infect people who then die so what as "other people are going to die either way.
For your liberty.
And they considered what Marcus Fysh said to be overly extreme.
Some people are inevitably going to die of Covid in the same way that some people are inevitably going to die from flu and from colds.
Can I put an 80+yr old's view, please. I don't like Philip Thompson's attitude; I feel that I've still got something to contribute to my community; I'm heavily involved with the u3a and other more local groups. Mrs C & I are triple jabbed and we've had the disease; after we'd been double vaccinated but before the booster; we didn't like it, we don't want it again, but if it's 'only like that' we could cope. What we don't want to do is spread it. What we want to do, though, is see our children and grandchildren; if that means I can't go down to the pub and see my fellow townsfolk, I'll accept that, although when our family members have all gone back to work, school or wherever, we'd both prefer to have some semblance of normal life.
Having spent my life in and around 'Health', I can't understand those who refuse vaccination and in spite of my natural liberal instincts I would push them to the back of the queue when scarce resources are needed.
Some of our family are in Education, teachers and other support staff, and we think the extra demands on them should be as low as possible; they have enough to do already.
Quick unsolicited advice on what next after Frost. Three ways to do replacement if you are Number 10 - path they choose will tell you a lot about nature of political operation left in building 1/
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
Firstly on topic. Beautiful photograph! But I can’t wait to get out there, splashing about like Peppa Pig. But yes seriously, irs very sad for businesses this sneaky hint hint wink wink lockdown that isn’t officially a lockdown 🤬 What’s Sunak going to do to help, he is dragging his feet! He wants to lead the country but he is another fuck business twit?
Secondly on topic most people likely argue on here today. I have read through everything on here since Frosty The Go Man happened on our Journey. I think I understand what you are all saying: The Committee for Brexit Purity are going to execute Danton. That’s it? (Nearly all of you saying this, some, like Big G, still sure resignation got nothing to do with Brexit because not mentioned in resignation letter - which to be fair to Big G I took to mean literally refusing to accept Brexit isn’t done, the sheer horror of the prospect it goes on tearing the Tory Party to shreds🙁 )
I’m very sorry but it has left me with two questions.
Firstly, the high ranking UK official who last week told EU negotiating team our key concession, UK will accept European Court Over ruling UK Democracy and Sovereignty (that is yes, we do wish to start down the slippery slope to being a vassal state of yours) was this, or was this not, Frosty the Go Man?
Secondly, a question for those who voted for Brexit and still support Brexit if I may, does this mean Brexit isn’t over? Brexit is far from done, because from here Brexit means Slash Taxes and Slash Regulation until we are not anything like the European Social Model, or else Brexit is not Brexit and not going to work? 😕
Bad day for my horses yesterday, both pulled up. Hope you did a bit better.
The underlying issue here is that Sunak is very, very dry on spending, to a Thatcherite level. I know of other cases where he has flatly refused to authorise expenditure even in the case where - as in hospitality - government action is causing real harm to a particular group of people. He wants to go into the next election - preferably as PM - as the man who slashed income tax, and every penny spent on anything new in the meantime is a penny too much.
That's arguably the traditional role of the Chancellor if you take a narrow departmental view. It's equally traditionally balanced by the strength of other Cabinet ministers and the power of the PM to strike a balance. But at present the rest of the Cabinet is weak - how many can quickly name the Education and Transport Secretaries of State? - and Johnson's authority is sapped. In the absence of the counterbalance, Scrooge rules.
That won't always be wrong, of course. Not every penny of government money is wisely-spent. But it drives one sector after another to the brink, and poitically there is an important cost to that. The Government is losing the backing of large businesses, small businesses and farmers, three of its bedrock supports. It is falling back on its core vote of people for whom voting Tory is simply a habit. And, as Labour found in the Red Wall, habits don't last forever.
As others have noted, the issue isn't really whether the Government is libertarian or not. People are avoiding restaurants and shops to protect their families, irrespective of what Ministers tell them to do. The issue is that by avoiding making it official policy, the Government gets out of helping the businesses disproportionately affected.
Quick unsolicited advice on what next after Frost. Three ways to do replacement if you are Number 10 - path they choose will tell you a lot about nature of political operation left in building 1/
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
Option 4: Is Gove not somewhat underemployed at the moment? He has impeccable credentials with the head bangers but is clever enough to be pragmatic and get this sorted. He may consider it a demotion now that the caravan has moved on somewhat but it could perhaps be combined with his other duties.
Gove is too clever to go near this “negotiation”
He spent over a year at the Cabinet Office formally responsible for resolving many of the tricky parts of Brexit and will be relieved to have successfully escaped from them.
Quick unsolicited advice on what next after Frost. Three ways to do replacement if you are Number 10 - path they choose will tell you a lot about nature of political operation left in building 1/
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
Other people are going to die either way. Respiratory viruses spread and you're delusional if you think otherwise.
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
No, lets not be distracted by your straw men and go back to the first line. "Other people are going to die anyway". Not of Covid if they don't catch it from someone infected at a party. And not necessarily this winter.
But that's your pitch. People who are infected should go party. If they infect people who then die so what as "other people are going to die either way.
For your liberty.
And they considered what Marcus Fysh said to be overly extreme.
Some people are inevitably going to die of Covid in the same way that some people are inevitably going to die from flu and from colds.
Well that is a useful statement of the bleeding obvious. The question is how many and who. I don't want to for my parents to be amongst them.
Sure, it is possible that they may catch it elsewhere, but it would be very hard to live with the knowledge that I gave it to them.
One of the saddest calls that I made when working on ICU in January was to tell a man whose wife was about to be ventilated. He told me that her parting words before she went in the ambulance were "you gave me this". She never got off the ventilator.
I've been sent it by three different people. Short synopsis: the modelling sage has done presents a worst case scenario, and does so at the behest of whoever commissioned the model. But it makes no comment on the likelihood of that scenario. In effect, a policy has been decided (I.e. further lockdowns) and modellers at sage have been asked to produce the models to justify this.
My question is who is commissioning this pre-engineered guff, and why? Fraserburgh Nelson thinks not Saj. But if not him, who?
So we are again into the “but it doesn’t look that bad in South Africa” viewpoint.
But South Africa isn’t the UK so it’s not an identical test bed and we simply don’t know the R0 rate of omicron nor how serious it can be and what is the severity of illness nor the trigger for severity nor the percentage who need hospitalisation.
You should note that my viewpoint is based on its so contagious nothing will stop it spreading quickly but I can see why people are looking at worst case scenarios because
1) that is their job 2) I’m struggling to see any valid reason that doesn’t make the worst case scenario highly likely. Heck, omicron arrived at the worst time possible, 3 weeks later and most people (already vaccinated people) at risk of serious illness would have been boosted anyway.
Reaction from a (senior) EU diplomat: “Until now, every British Brexit negotiator has resigned or was sacked. Is it because Brexit is bad for Britain and leaves UK negotiators with the impossible task of squaring the circle?” Ouch. https://twitter.com/adamparsons/status/1472310341828755460
In fairness, short of dying on the job, surely everyone ends an employment by either resigning or being sacked?
Mr. Sandpit, yeah, my thoughts exactly. Twenty races is quite sufficient.
They’re more likely to go for 25 rather than 20 though, as demand to host a race has never been higher and Liberty have paid a fortune for the commercial rights.
The teams have already said that 22 is too many for the mechanics and garage crews, are looking to hire a second shift to alternate races, or start chartering planes. Even the engineers - who fly business class, turn up on Thursday afternooon and leave Sunday evening - say it’s getting too busy.
The underlying issue here is that Sunak is very, very dry on spending, to a Thatcherite level. I know of other cases where he has flatly refused to authorise expenditure even in the case where - as in hospitality - government action is causing real harm to a particular group of people. He wants to go into the next election - preferably as PM - as the man who slashed income tax, and every penny spent on anything new in the meantime is a penny too much.
That's arguably the traditional role of the Chancellor if you take a narrow departmental view. It's equally traditionally balanced by the strength of other Cabinet ministers and the power of the PM to strike a balance. But at present the rest of the Cabinet is weak - how many can quickly name the Education and Transport Secretaries of State? - and Johnson's authority is sapped. In the absence of the counterbalance, Scrooge rules.
That won't always be wrong, of course. Not every penny of government money is wisely-spent. But it drives one sector after another to the brink, and poitically there is an important cost to that. The Government is losing the backing of large businesses, small businesses and farmers, three of its bedrock supports. It is falling back on its core vote of people for whom voting Tory is simply a habit. And, as Labour found in the Red Wall, habits don't last forever.
As others have noted, the issue isn't really whether the Government is libertarian or not. People are avoiding restaurants and shops to protect their families, irrespective of what Ministers tell them to do. The issue is that by avoiding making it official policy, the Government gets out of helping the businesses disproportionately affected.
If Sunak did become leader I don't think even he would win as big a majority as Boris did. He might get a small majority as Cameron did in 2015 but still lose much of the Redwall. Indeed his coalition would likely look more like Cameron's than Boris'. Sunak may well lose seats like Burnley, Stoke Central, Workington and Leigh but he could win back seats like Enfield Southgate, Putney and St Albans
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
He an idiot who has no clue what he is talking about. Wait till someone in his family is in that position , he will not be such a clown then.
Reaction from a (senior) EU diplomat: “Until now, every British Brexit negotiator has resigned or was sacked. Is it because Brexit is bad for Britain and leaves UK negotiators with the impossible task of squaring the circle?” Ouch. https://twitter.com/adamparsons/status/1472310341828755460
In fairness, short of dying on the job, surely everyone ends an employment by either resigning or being sacked?
Eh? In an ideal world you'd achieve what you had set out to, and get promoted to a bigger job. In the real world, perhaps not so much - although remarkably there are other, easier, routes to promotion!
Sajid Javid says "there is much we still don't know" about Omicron and warns "it may be too late to react".
It's genuinely looking like the only thing that might have worked is a lockdown* the day Omicron was discovered. Every day since then the virus has been spreading like wildfire.
* Purely from a flatten the curve perspective, nothing is actually going to stop Omicron.
I've been sent it by three different people. Short synopsis: the modelling sage has done presents a worst case scenario, and does so at the behest of whoever commissioned the model. But it makes no comment on the likelihood of that scenario. In effect, a policy has been decided (I.e. further lockdowns) and modellers at sage have been asked to produce the models to justify this.
My question is who is commissioning this pre-engineered guff, and why? Fraserburgh Nelson thinks not Saj. But if not him, who?
So we are again into the “but it doesn’t look that bad in South Africa” viewpoint.
But South Africa isn’t the UK so it’s not an identical test bed and we simply don’t know the R0 rate of omicron nor how serious it can be and what is the severity of illness nor the trigger for severity nor the percentage who need hospitalisation.
You should note that my viewpoint is based on its so contagious nothing will stop it spreading quickly but I can see why people are looking at worst case scenarios because
1) that is their job 2) I’m struggling to see any valid reason that doesn’t make the worst case scenario highly likely. Heck, omicron arrived at the worst time possible, 3 weeks later and most people (already vaccinated people) at risk of serious illness would have been boosted anyway.
It's more the 'model only what will justify the policy' that saddens me. Why bother having modellers if you are going to make the decision beforehand?
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
Other people are going to die either way. Respiratory viruses spread and you're delusional if you think otherwise.
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
No, lets not be distracted by your straw men and go back to the first line. "Other people are going to die anyway". Not of Covid if they don't catch it from someone infected at a party. And not necessarily this winter.
But that's your pitch. People who are infected should go party. If they infect people who then die so what as "other people are going to die either way.
For your liberty.
And they considered what Marcus Fysh said to be overly extreme.
It is attitudes like @Philip_Thompson that make it far less safe to socialise. I won't be going anywhere outside work (and wearing an FFP3 there), apart from my brother on Boxing Day to see my folks. There are too many reckless idiots about.
I'm not planning on seeing family over Christmas, I never do, I hate the traditional family Christmas and long ago stopped partaking of it.
I am as immune as I will ever be, at least until they produce an Omicron vax. None of my social activities take priority over any others and the only people I will put at risk are those who, like me, are happy to risk going to the pub.
At work, two of us have had Covid since October and apparently not passed it in to anyone else, so our Covid protocols are working. The only worry is they won't work for Omicron.
The underlying issue here is that Sunak is very, very dry on spending, to a Thatcherite level. I know of other cases where he has flatly refused to authorise expenditure even in the case where - as in hospitality - government action is causing real harm to a particular group of people. He wants to go into the next election - preferably as PM - as the man who slashed income tax, and every penny spent on anything new in the meantime is a penny too much.
That's arguably the traditional role of the Chancellor if you take a narrow departmental view. It's equally traditionally balanced by the strength of other Cabinet ministers and the power of the PM to strike a balance. But at present the rest of the Cabinet is weak - how many can quickly name the Education and Transport Secretaries of State? - and Johnson's authority is sapped. In the absence of the counterbalance, Scrooge rules.
That won't always be wrong, of course. Not every penny of government money is wisely-spent. But it drives one sector after another to the brink, and poitically there is an important cost to that. The Government is losing the backing of large businesses, small businesses and farmers, three of its bedrock supports. It is falling back on its core vote of people for whom voting Tory is simply a habit. And, as Labour found in the Red Wall, habits don't last forever.
As others have noted, the issue isn't really whether the Government is libertarian or not. People are avoiding restaurants and shops to protect their families, irrespective of what Ministers tell them to do. The issue is that by avoiding making it official policy, the Government gets out of helping the businesses disproportionately affected.
Transport Secretary is easy it’s Grant Shapps. The issue is that you may know him as Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath or Sebastian Fox.
Either way he’s incompetent and has screwed up levelling up.
As for protecting restaurants - a lot of cancellations occurred well before the government said anything
Are people locking down because they don't want the virus, or locking down because they don't want to isolate if they get the virus.
Time to remove all restrictions on contact including isolation. Stop trying to prevent the spread of this virus and just allow the vaccines to do their job.
Destroying businesses to save the lives of antivaxxers isn't OK.
This isn’t about saving antivaxxers.
It’s a simple question of capacity. We’ve seen mass cancellations of medical appointments to provide capacity for treatment of Covid.
If you want to preserve the principle that the NHS serves all citizens free at the point of need, then that is the necessary step.
So it makes sense to try and slow down the rate at which people will become infected. Otherwise demand will exceed capacity and people will suffer.
If capacity is exceeded then the NHS should engage in triage.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
That really doesn’t work the way you want.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
So? That will happen for a few weeks and then we're through the wave.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
"So" being you being happy for other people to be intubated and die on your behalf. You raise the occasional objection to having this "I want other people to die so I can live" mindset pointed out, but here it is again.
Other people are going to die either way. Respiratory viruses spread and you're delusional if you think otherwise.
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
No, lets not be distracted by your straw men and go back to the first line. "Other people are going to die anyway". Not of Covid if they don't catch it from someone infected at a party. And not necessarily this winter.
But that's your pitch. People who are infected should go party. If they infect people who then die so what as "other people are going to die either way.
For your liberty.
And they considered what Marcus Fysh said to be overly extreme.
Yes from Covid. We're all going to catch it, that's what Whitty said. So stop postponing the mathematically inevitable at great expense and just get it over and done with.
Quick unsolicited advice on what next after Frost. Three ways to do replacement if you are Number 10 - path they choose will tell you a lot about nature of political operation left in building 1/
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
TLDR: Sink Truss's prospects by dumping the insoluble problem on her!
Yes, that would be a good plan. There is no need for a Brexit Secretary now that Brexit is done. It should go back to the FCO.
I cant think of any job in the Conservative Party more likely to destroy any future prospects of advancement than Frost's old job, there must be a load of Ministers nervously eyeing their inboxes this morning fearing the offer of this exciting new "opportunity"...far easier to donate a sack of cash and get a peerage than grab that poisoned chalice
Comments
We gave up sovereignty. Whilst supplicants to the clown car claim that we had gained it. We added vast amounts of regulation, bureaucracy and red tape whist apologists for Peppa claimed we had abolished it.
There is nothing about this government's Brexit deal worth talking up. It does the reverse of what it claims to have done.
If people aren't going out when they're entirely asymptomatic or have the sniffles, because it's illegal for them to do so, that's a different matter.
That you want to conflate being positive with being sick even if someone is asymptomatic reveals your own zealotry.
People suffer from lockdowns too.
The Express appear to have only just clocked that Brexit means you incur extra charges when sending stuff from the UK to Spain.
Their ability to appear wide-eyed and innocent in the face of the ridiculously obvious is only outmatched by John Redwood's. https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1472371072737624067/photo/1
England have passed the lowest score in first class cricket.
Lowest score in Tests next.
One wicket down already. Hameed out for a duck.
January is going to be fun for imports and exports and the person responsible is running away roughly 3 weeks before the complete lack of implementation becomes obvious.
People spread respiratory illnesses on a daily basis.
Are you suggesting it should be against the law for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their house so they don't infect others?
The government has chosen a path.
Yep this unvaccinated person needs icu as they may survive. The person with cancer has slightly less chance so prioritise the idiot.
"Boris ORDERED to resign" by various mouth-breathing ex Brexit Party MPs
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1538279/Brexit-live-news-lord-david-frost-resigns-boris-Johnson-eu-talks-fishing-Northern-Ireland
"BREXIT HAMMER BLOW" as bizarrely global leaders look at the clown car government in the UK and don't share our vision of signing massively favourable trade deals
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1536606/Brexit-Boris-Johnson-trade-deals-tory-party-credibility-Christmas-party
"Farage hails True Brexiteer", turning his sights on Boris Johnson
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1538247/nigel-farage-brexit-news-david-frost-boris-johnson-covid-vaccines
For a "news"paper that only the other day had a P1 headline begging readers to keep the faith with Peppa, they seem to have turned into a Refuk paper.
Slashing NHS capacity while "flattening" the virus has slashed capacity for two years and counting.
Triage for a few weeks and then get back to normal.
Rishi Sunak 3.4 / 3.5
Liz Truss 5.1 / 5.4
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.160663234
https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1471485797530583046?t=bxHxSd5D3HlDc3JbrubU6g&s=19
Sorry to see Lord Frost leave the government. The PM must not give in to the EU over Northern Ireland. The U.K. must take control of GB to Northern Ireland trade.
https://twitter.com/johnredwood/status/1472462262665420802
Like Sellers, Johnson is actually quite an intelligent man who has very little fixed in his life, and seems happiest of all playing an ingenue finding himself in a situation of power.
The repeatedly "random" and chaotic speeches after dinner that Jeremy Vine described, apparently in fact each carefully structured for the same effect each time, are very much part of this same syndrome of an observant and perceptive, if not necessarily very profound man, being most at home playing an ingenue hitting the corridors of power.
I highly recommend that film, including for both parts of that current context - a very interesting one.
Dragging the pandemic on via restrictions doesn't end it.
https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2022.html
I wonder if Saudi Arabia, pencilled in as number two race, will be updated. High speeds, close walls, and blind corners are overdoing it there, I think.
Anyway, back to sovereignty. You know the mindset of Tory backbenchers more than I do. Does the abolition of the UK as a trading zone worry any of the people who make claims about how we have gained sovereignty? For the first time in the history of the union between the islands of Britain and Ireland we need paperwork and licenses to trade. Surely that isn't something they think is a gain vs the status quo ante?
Or does Ireland not matter?
And if the ECJ have a say in Northern Ireland that means the ECJ still has a say in the UK or we’ve just quietly separated NI even further from the rest of the UK
And wait to the day the unionists pick up on the fact
It had the EU control GB to NI trade.
Oh and the EU would control GB to GB trade too.
Your (unable to wfh) work might not want you in.
You don't want to see your 90 yr old nan
But should you legally be restricted from a big night out in Blackpool with your mates ?
Anyone looked into what the likely total rate of deaths is for 2021? It looked like 2020 had a few tens of thousands additional deaths than a normal year but it was still roughly in line with historical averages.
That's what all this goes down to - spending money on lockdowns to prevent avoidable deaths + accepting hard to quantify long term harm to mental health to do so.
Wheres the calculations? Wheres the impact assessments? I'm not following this in the way that some people do, but all I can see is reports that deal with worst case scenarios and lead to conclusions LOCKDOWN NOW. CIRCUIT BREAKER NOW.
Policy just seems to be driven by guesswork and panic. To be fair, it is in line with the precedent set since 2010 by the government, just act on gut instinct, disregard the experts unless they have useful conclusions or you can blame them for something going wrong, etc etc.
But now the pandemic has been going on for 2 years. So you can start to take an objective view on further measures.
Going back to my original speculation about the pandemic being the ruin of us; this can well occur due to the societal inability to accept excess avoidable deaths and to throw every resource of the state at it. A battle that cannot be won. Collective safetyism being the parasite that destroys the host.
So many sacred cows slashed in pursuit of this: freedom, control over lives, defacto ID cards, the 'best interests of the child'; etc etc. So many Rubicons crossed.
I must confess that I am somewhat confused as to the current state of play. We also went to the Everyman cinema (which was great). You were supposed to wear your mask moving around but you didn't need to when sitting down in the cinema.
My kids went on to the junkyard crazy golf. Not seen them yet this morning but they got home at 2.30. It was quite a long way from what @Cyclefree is describing.
The Tory Brexit headbangers could never get the public to support their low tax and spend economic vision, but Brexit was sold as the opposite (more cash for the NHS!!)
The contradictions could never be reconciled. It is amazing it has taken this long for them to explode
It had the UK subjugated under EU control.
The arrest relates to a video posted online in which people were encouraged to burn down MPs’ offices.
https://news.met.police.uk/news/man-arrested-on-suspicion-of-encouragement-to-commit-arson-439753
Our Brexit deal cut off part of the UK. We went from being able to trade freely within not just the UK but the CTA, to being able to trade freely within the EEC/EC/EU/EEA to being restricted only to free trade within GB.
Even if we set aside the rest of the CTA for a minute, I now need to apply for an export license and complete paperwork declaring my intentions to move products from our Shepton Mallet warehouse to customers in NI. In our own country. It is far easier to allow a partner based in Dublin to make that trade whereas before Brexit it almost certainly would have been a UK company in the north trading with the whole island.
Brexit lost us sovereignty over our own country. How can you and yours continue to champion the great gains made by your Brexit deal in this area when we have lost our ability to freely trade with ourselves in our own country.
Again, does Ireland not matter? Not the Republic, the North. Because if not - and that is the direct read of what you and your say and do with regards to this matter - then what is sovereignty to you? Sovereignty of what? It isn't of the UK as you ceded part of that. What then?
People die from the common cold and flu too.
Do you think we should make it illegal for anyone with a common cold coronavirus to leave their home so they might infect others?
Option one. Go with true believer Brexiteer from backbenches. Assuming someone willing to take the job, this will get you c.12 hours breathing space with latest incarnation of ERG and please some excitable folk. 2/
Won't work in long run because this Government is not going to invoke Article 16 next year - and nor should they in the short term. Cue resignation, WhatsApp bloodletting, compounding chaos 3/
Option Two. Go with largely anonymous safe pair of hands. Fine. But there's no political advance by doing this. And said individual will become target for those mourning Frost the man and myth. Compounding chaos again 4/
Ps on Frost man and myth, depending on your politics he seems this morning to be somewhere between Abraham Lincoln and over promoted booze lobbyist. Suspect neither caricature true - but fascinating to watch narratives nonetheless 5/
Option Three. Give it to the Foreign Secretary where arguably should reside. Triggering Article 16 somewhat more impactful decision than trade deal with Australia. Politically this helps Johnson because tests LT mettle with Brexit BBs and whether for real or just words 6/
Positive inflection for Team Truss is that it offers them platform to do something politically hard. she can conclude to satisfaction of both ERG and wider party then leadership is hers to lose 7/end
https://twitter.com/NIHargrave/status/1472482396918489088
In many ways this is a bigger problem for hospitality than rules as outlined in the header. January tends to be a quiet month for hospitality anyway, but it will be very quiet this year. It is going to need support no matter what.
But that's your pitch. People who are infected should go party. If they infect people who then die so what as "other people are going to die either way.
For your liberty.
And they considered what Marcus Fysh said to be overly extreme.
Not enough Blimps.
Too many Dagos Wops Frogs and Micks
The question of course is that if they are willing to do their jobs to protect public safety, why not the same when it comes to Downing Street where the evidence is also clear?
'We knew it would be tough,' said Random Thick Posho What Does Comms 'but we didn't think the only good bit would be Jos Buttler's comically inept wicketkeeping. We thought at least a few Aussie wickets might go down to good cricket not silly run outs.'
BT Sport, asked for comment, said they would continue to show the Tests because the important thing was they had got rid of all the racists in their commentary team, apart from the Aussies themselves.
The England cricket team, approached for comment, could not be found, on the basis that what they're playing is barely cricket.
The Aussies are too busy laughing to say anything.
Food standards, product safety are not things we really should care greatly about it’s the sort of thing we can piggy back on and steal from the EU.
Pretty sure there will be some work on the Saudi track over the winter, that was really quite dangerous in places.
Ouch.
https://twitter.com/adamparsons/status/1472310341828755460
a) broadly abiding by the rules
b) worried about the virus (more for their parents/grandparents),
c) very keen to get boostered asap
d) cancelling Christmas meetups to protect the ones they really care about
e) fine with new restrictions, provided they can hunker down with family for Christmas
https://mobile.twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1472331053775958016
Look at the last screenshot. Turns out that there was a negotiated deal at GE2019 to get Farage’s party to stand down in favour of the Tories.
Can BoZo be sure Gove isn't going to reprise his previous role and state "I was right, BoZo isn't up to the job" ?
He promises to recall Parliament if further restrictions are proposed by the government.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1472489022433988611
https://mobile.twitter.com/GrahamMedley/status/1472180776066334721
I've been sent it by three different people. Short synopsis: the modelling sage has done presents a worst case scenario, and does so at the behest of whoever commissioned the model. But it makes no comment on the likelihood of that scenario. In effect, a policy has been decided (I.e. further lockdowns) and modellers at sage have been asked to produce the models to justify this.
Fraser Nelson gives a fuller synopsis here:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-twitter-conversation-with-the-chairman-of-the-sage-covid-modelling-committee
My question is who is commissioning this pre-engineered guff, and why? Fraserburgh Nelson thinks not Saj. But if not him, who?
Mrs C & I are triple jabbed and we've had the disease; after we'd been double vaccinated but before the booster; we didn't like it, we don't want it again, but if it's 'only like that' we could cope. What we don't want to do is spread it.
What we want to do, though, is see our children and grandchildren; if that means I can't go down to the pub and see my fellow townsfolk, I'll accept that, although when our family members have all gone back to work, school or wherever, we'd both prefer to have some semblance of normal life.
Having spent my life in and around 'Health', I can't understand those who refuse vaccination and in spite of my natural liberal instincts I would push them to the back of the queue when scarce resources are needed.
Some of our family are in Education, teachers and other support staff, and we think the extra demands on them should be as low as possible; they have enough to do already.
That's arguably the traditional role of the Chancellor if you take a narrow departmental view. It's equally traditionally balanced by the strength of other Cabinet ministers and the power of the PM to strike a balance. But at present the rest of the Cabinet is weak - how many can quickly name the Education and Transport Secretaries of State? - and Johnson's authority is sapped. In the absence of the counterbalance, Scrooge rules.
That won't always be wrong, of course. Not every penny of government money is wisely-spent. But it drives one sector after another to the brink, and poitically there is an important cost to that. The Government is losing the backing of large businesses, small businesses and farmers, three of its bedrock supports. It is falling back on its core vote of people for whom voting Tory is simply a habit. And, as Labour found in the Red Wall, habits don't last forever.
As others have noted, the issue isn't really whether the Government is libertarian or not. People are avoiding restaurants and shops to protect their families, irrespective of what Ministers tell them to do. The issue is that by avoiding making it official policy, the Government gets out of helping the businesses disproportionately affected.
https://twitter.com/EssexPR/status/1472356698941792258?s=20
Glad you enjoyed the Toon
Why Liz Truss failed to defend the judges
Joshua Rozenberg"
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/enemy-of-the-people
Sure, it is possible that they may catch it elsewhere, but it would be very hard to live with the knowledge that I gave it to them.
One of the saddest calls that I made when working on ICU in January was to tell a man whose wife was about to be ventilated. He told me that her parting words before she went in the ambulance were "you gave me this". She never got off the ventilator.
But South Africa isn’t the UK so it’s not an identical test bed and we simply don’t know the R0 rate of omicron nor how serious it can be and what is the severity of illness nor the trigger for severity nor the percentage who need hospitalisation.
You should note that my viewpoint is based on its so contagious nothing will stop it spreading quickly but I can see why people are looking at worst case scenarios because
1) that is their job
2) I’m struggling to see any valid reason that doesn’t make the worst case scenario highly likely. Heck, omicron arrived at the worst time possible, 3 weeks later and most people (already vaccinated people) at risk of serious illness would have been boosted anyway.
The teams have already said that 22 is too many for the mechanics and garage crews, are looking to hire a second shift to alternate races, or start chartering planes. Even the engineers - who fly business class, turn up on Thursday afternooon and leave Sunday evening - say it’s getting too busy.
* Purely from a flatten the curve perspective, nothing is actually going to stop Omicron.
I am as immune as I will ever be, at least until they produce an Omicron vax. None of my social activities take priority over any others and the only people I will put at risk are those who, like me, are happy to risk going to the pub.
At work, two of us have had Covid since October and apparently not passed it in to anyone else, so our Covid protocols are working. The only worry is they won't work for Omicron.
Either way he’s incompetent and has screwed up levelling up.
As for protecting restaurants - a lot of cancellations occurred well before the government said anything