Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
If the banker is here on a 6 month placement, they are an ex-pat. If they have moved here permanently, they are an immigrant.
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h This is what I was talking about. Evidence Omicron is milder has been available for some time. Doesn't mean we're out of the woods, or anything like it. But if officials showed a willingness to acknowledge good news a bit sooner it would help build confidence in their analysis.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
If the banker is here on a 6 month placement, they are an ex-pat. If they have moved here permanently, they are an immigrant.
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
Yes, except we in Britain wouldn't talk about someone moving to Spain as an immigrant. From our point of view, they are an emigrant. But the Spanish would term them immigrants.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
We do it for fags and booze where there is proven harm. Not being vaccinated is a proven harm.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Not while Europe is guzzling Russia's big fat pipe of gas.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
Marina Hyde: WHY – were these people not even professionally self-interested enough to realise that as the setters of the rules in a deadly pandemic, it was mission-critical that they adhered at all times to both the letter and spirit of them? What a stunning failure of the imagination. Maybe they just thought they’d never get caught.
Either way, as we await the known unknowns of the Omicron wave, it’s wild that No 10 staff have done as much to undermine trust in vital public health messages as mad conspiracists on YouTube. These Downing Street geniuses have yet again dealt a body-blow to longterm levels of trust in politicians and the political class in this country – and with the odd exception, they all still work there. Forgive me; they all still work “for us”. Have they finally now caught on that careless cheese and wine costs lives? I wouldn’t bank on it. They evidently didn’t learn the lesson even after discovering that careless automobile-based eye tests cost lives.
Anyway, speaking of work meetings, weakling king Johnson is now reduced to holding two-hour-plus cabinets at which the decision is not to make a decision yet.
As a journalist, Marina Hyde has never had to attend any of the management meetings that I have had to sit through during my working career, or she wouldn't express any surprise at all.
I am wary of trusting the MSM, for whom Boris Johnson is manna from heaven. He is the ultimate box office politician, the source of a billion clicks and I sense they do not want to let him go under any circumstances.
The very last thing they want is some highly capable but slightly boring managerial type, quietly getting on with governing Britain well.
Who was the last PM that fit that description though?
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h This is what I was talking about. Evidence Omicron is milder has been available for some time. Doesn't mean we're out of the woods, or anything like it. But if officials showed a willingness to acknowledge good news a bit sooner it would help build confidence in their analysis.
They don't trust the public with the acknowledgement of good news. In case we all lose our heads over it and behave recklessly.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
Johnson won't resign - nothing in his past tells you that he will do the honourable thing - heck he's had to be fired 3 times because even after being caught red-handed he wouldn't do the honourable thing.
That’s not quite true. He flounced out of the 2016 leadership election which was still very winnable for him, because he was worried he might lose. If he thinks he’ll suffer a humiliating defeat in a VONC then I can well see him resign before one is formally called. He just needs a safe exit point. Victory over Omicron might be it.
Boris flounced at the point he knew he wasn't going to win that leadership contest and he feared the consequences of ending up as the loser.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
Johnson won't resign - nothing in his past tells you that he will do the honourable thing - heck he's had to be fired 3 times because even after being caught red-handed he wouldn't do the honourable thing.
That’s not quite true. He flounced out of the 2016 leadership election which was still very winnable for him, because he was worried he might lose. If he thinks he’ll suffer a humiliating defeat in a VONC then I can well see him resign before one is formally called. He just needs a safe exit point. Victory over Omicron might be it.
Boris flounced at the point he knew he wasn't going to win that leadership contest and he feared the consequences of ending up as the loser.
Good news keeps coming though. Just seen stuff from icu in France showing that most are exiting much more rapidly. Yes there are still uncertainties. We still need caution. But I really think we are going to be ok.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
We do it for fags and booze where there is proven harm. Not being vaccinated is a proven harm.
To yourself and NHS capacity. As is mountaineering.
And yes we do do it for fags and booze. But this is the obverse of that. It is people not doing something not people doing something. It is people not wanting to ingest a "poison".
Marina Hyde: WHY – were these people not even professionally self-interested enough to realise that as the setters of the rules in a deadly pandemic, it was mission-critical that they adhered at all times to both the letter and spirit of them? What a stunning failure of the imagination. Maybe they just thought they’d never get caught.
Either way, as we await the known unknowns of the Omicron wave, it’s wild that No 10 staff have done as much to undermine trust in vital public health messages as mad conspiracists on YouTube. These Downing Street geniuses have yet again dealt a body-blow to longterm levels of trust in politicians and the political class in this country – and with the odd exception, they all still work there. Forgive me; they all still work “for us”. Have they finally now caught on that careless cheese and wine costs lives? I wouldn’t bank on it. They evidently didn’t learn the lesson even after discovering that careless automobile-based eye tests cost lives.
Anyway, speaking of work meetings, weakling king Johnson is now reduced to holding two-hour-plus cabinets at which the decision is not to make a decision yet.
As a journalist, Marina Hyde has never had to attend any of the management meetings that I have had to sit through during my working career, or she wouldn't express any surprise at all.
Not even a journalist, but a columnist - paid a few grand each week, for an hour’s work that can be done from anywhere, and has been for two or three decades.
Her personal effect of any restrictions, will be limited to her inability to winter in Tuscany or weekend in Barcelona.
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
If the banker is here on a 6 month placement, they are an ex-pat. If they have moved here permanently, they are an immigrant.
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
Yes, except we in Britain wouldn't talk about someone moving to Spain as an immigrant. From our point of view, they are an emigrant. But the Spanish would term them immigrants.
That would be splendid. Instead of the incorrect use of the term ex-pat.
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
If the banker is here on a 6 month placement, they are an ex-pat. If they have moved here permanently, they are an immigrant.
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
Yes, except we in Britain wouldn't talk about someone moving to Spain as an immigrant. From our point of view, they are an emigrant. But the Spanish would term them immigrants.
That would be splendid. Instead of the incorrect use of the term ex-pat.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Do the various hiking and adventure clubs, raise money for the charities that might assist them on a bad day?
In the recreational aviation community, every clubhouse has at least one collecting tin for the local air ambulance, and there’s a steady stream of events to raise money for them.
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
If the banker is here on a 6 month placement, they are an ex-pat. If they have moved here permanently, they are an immigrant.
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
An expat is an emigrant who isn't permanently settled.
It's a perfectly legitimate word to use, but if they are permanently settled then the word is emigrant.
The word is never immigrant. Immigrant is from the other perspective. Using immigrant to mean expat is as incorrect as using credit to mean debit.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
Johnson won't resign - nothing in his past tells you that he will do the honourable thing - heck he's had to be fired 3 times because even after being caught red-handed he wouldn't do the honourable thing.
That’s not quite true. He flounced out of the 2016 leadership election which was still very winnable for him, because he was worried he might lose. If he thinks he’ll suffer a humiliating defeat in a VONC then I can well see him resign before one is formally called. He just needs a safe exit point. Victory over Omicron might be it.
Boris flounced at the point he knew he wasn't going to win that leadership contest and he feared the consequences of ending up as the loser.
Good news keeps coming though. Just seen stuff from icu in France showing that most are exiting much more rapidly. Yes there are still uncertainties. We still need caution. But I really think we are going to be ok.
My problem is that I don't see Boris going unless he is forced to - he really isn't the sort of person to leave anything willingly - let alone the job he's spent all his life aiming for and where he has clearly defined aims (tenure longer than May and ideally longer than Cameron).
Given he's "done Brexit", and he's "done Covid" anyone sane might have left in September to spend more time with his money. As I said then, it's all downhill from here and everything since then has shown that my view then was correct.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Do the various hiking and adventure clubs, raise money for the charities that might assist them?
In the recreational aviation community, every clubhouse has at least one collecting tin for the local air ambulance, and there’s a steady stream of events to raise money for them.
Don't most mountain rescue teams get drawn from them anyway? That was the case in Snowdonia when I was in Aber - one of the lead rescuers for Cadair Idris was a lecturer of physics.
Hell of a nice guy and the fittest man I've ever met. Could literally do a run up and down four mountains and not be out of breath at the end.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Do the various hiking and adventure clubs, raise money for the charities that might assist them?
In the recreational aviation community, every clubhouse has at least one collecting tin for the local air ambulance, and there’s a steady stream of events to raise money for them.
Of course, but that doesn't cover the NHS and Helicopters (Coastguard, formerly Navy/RAF).
I've raised a significant chunk for Mountain Rescue over the last few years - maybe 5% of a new defender...
I'd advise extreme caution over case numbers in the upcoming fortnight, like the bins there's a massive Christmas effect
Fortunately it's hospitalisations that matter, and by the Thursday breakdown on incidentals we'll have enough lag to know if that London surge was worth a worry or not.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
Johnson won't resign - nothing in his past tells you that he will do the honourable thing - heck he's had to be fired 3 times because even after being caught red-handed he wouldn't do the honourable thing.
That’s not quite true. He flounced out of the 2016 leadership election which was still very winnable for him, because he was worried he might lose. If he thinks he’ll suffer a humiliating defeat in a VONC then I can well see him resign before one is formally called. He just needs a safe exit point. Victory over Omicron might be it.
Boris flounced at the point he knew he wasn't going to win that leadership contest and he feared the consequences of ending up as the loser.
Good news keeps coming though. Just seen stuff from icu in France showing that most are exiting much more rapidly. Yes there are still uncertainties. We still need caution. But I really think we are going to be ok.
I'm 75% sure we are going to be ok with Omicron. I'm 75% sure that:
Fast peak and fast decline, as South Africa shows + less severe symptoms resulting in less hospitalisation, less use of ICU and shorter stays + booster roll out + highly vaccinated population and large numbers of prior infection
>
omicron's faster spread and the extent to which omicron can bypass vaccination.
I'm less convinced however that the politicians will have the nerve to hold the line on this! My expectation that we'll get to New Year without another lockdown announced is now rather less than 50%. Partly because they are risk averse, partly because they will be bounced into it by a fearful public led by a fearful broadcast media.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
If the banker is here on a 6 month placement, they are an ex-pat. If they have moved here permanently, they are an immigrant.
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
Yes, except we in Britain wouldn't talk about someone moving to Spain as an immigrant. From our point of view, they are an emigrant. But the Spanish would term them immigrants.
In my experience national attitudes to all migrants depends on the degree to which they are dependent on handouts. Nothing peculiarly British about it.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
I remember some years ago when there was one of these corporate "Three Peaks Challenge" things for charity. One of the participants wasn't feeling too good, but insisted on keeping going to reach the top of the third mountain. At that point they keeled over and had to be taken off by helicopter. Yes, they really raised plenty for charity that day.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Do the various hiking and adventure clubs, raise money for the charities that might assist them on a bad day?
In the recreational aviation community, every clubhouse has at least one collecting tin for the local air ambulance, and there’s a steady stream of events to raise money for them.
Same in spades for the riding community. Over a lifetime I have waited five times holding someone's horse/hand waiting for a helicopter.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
All 9 vulnerable groups were jabbed by 15th Feb. When the lockdown imposed in early Jan the original target to reopen schools was after Feb half term. This was actually pushed back until after the jabbing was complete.
Cases and hospitalisations were showing a clear decline by early March. It wasn’t “lucky” that problems didn’t occur : it was a sensible judgement in the situation. And over than schools being open, we remained in lockdown for a further month until anything else reopened.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h This is what I was talking about. Evidence Omicron is milder has been available for some time. Doesn't mean we're out of the woods, or anything like it. But if officials showed a willingness to acknowledge good news a bit sooner it would help build confidence in their analysis.
But didn't Saint Nicola of Holyrood yesterday poo-poo the idea that there was any evidence Omicron was milder ?
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Do the various hiking and adventure clubs, raise money for the charities that might assist them?
In the recreational aviation community, every clubhouse has at least one collecting tin for the local air ambulance, and there’s a steady stream of events to raise money for them.
Don't most mountain rescue teams get drawn from them anyway? That was the case in Snowdonia when I was in Aber - one of the lead rescuers for Cadair Idris was a lecturer of physics.
Hell of a nice guy and the fittest man I've ever met. Could literally do a run up and down four mountains and not be out of breath at the end.
A distant relation used to be one of the dog-handlers for a team in The Lakes. Now in his 80's still does a lot of walking. He and his wife leave most of their visitors gasping after a walk.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
Yes and yes. But that's not all.
I think from my knowledge of Russia - which isn't complete, so I could easily be wrong - would say they're suspicious of NATO less because they think it will invade than because it gives help and support to countries they think of as either being hostile to them and their interests (e.g. intervening in Kosovo) or makes it more difficult to take back countries they regard as inalienably Russian that have somehow gone off track (Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia). Especially Ukraine. Remember Russia grew out of a state based on Kiev.
That's why they're so aggressive. They are paranoid not about direct invasion but about being made smaller and weaker so they can be dominated by others when they think given their size and resources they should be doing the dominating.
That article @IanB2 linked to is interesting on this point given the propaganda being forced on Russian children (especially) seems designed to reinforce this worldview.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Gracious.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Focaldata point out these figures differ from YouGov because they add a second push to try to get people to make a decision. This is also why they think Boris does better here because when pressed the Don't knows go for Boris rather than Starmer.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
All 9 vulnerable groups were jabbed by 15th Feb. When the lockdown imposed in early Jan the original target to reopen schools was after Feb half term. This was actually pushed back until after the jabbing was complete.
Cases and hospitalisations were showing a clear decline by early March. It wasn’t “lucky” that problems didn’t occur : it was a sensible judgement in the situation. And over than schools being open, we remained in lockdown for a further month until anything else reopened.
You do know the decision was made in mid-January and not in February? It was only announced then, although there were leaks in the Times much earlier.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
I suspect that, after the fractious Cabinet meeting the other day, there will be resignations if more severe restrictions are to be imposed.
Given that the Opposition are all in favour of the increased restrictions, it will probably take Graham Brady to point out that there will be a hundred letters on his desk if the government goes ahead.
I think that Johnson might be able to get away with a circuit breaker, but only under the following conditions:
1. An obvious and substantial uptick in the total number of Covid patients clogging the hospitals, which can be directly attributed to the rise in cases 2. Cases haven't peaked and started falling again as in South Africa, i.e. there's good evidence that the pressure isn't going to ease anytime soon 3. A generous business support package to stop half the hospitality and leisure sector being wiped out this time. Claiming that furlough (or, failing that, very generous grants to cover wages instead) is not needed if, for example, restaurants are still technically allowed to trade - but only with the rule of six, 2m distancing, and outdoors in January - won't cut it with anyone 4. That the Parliamentary vote approving the lockdown states that it is strictly time limited, and that all of the restrictions are going to be dumped at the end of it, so that both people and businesses know when all the Covid crap is going in the bin and can plan with confidence accordingly
Much of the Tory Party, the economy and the citizenry are reaching the end of their patience with being told to keep making sacrifices every time the hospitals get busy. But if all of the above conditions are met then I think Johnson's fractious backbenchers might be willing to wear one more lockdown, of no more than four weeks' duration, if it's presented as a means to defer some of the infections whilst the booster campaign is still in progress. And that's it.
Your condition 4 makes no sense.
What if you reach the end of the circuit breaker and 1&2 criteria are still met?
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h This is what I was talking about. Evidence Omicron is milder has been available for some time. Doesn't mean we're out of the woods, or anything like it. But if officials showed a willingness to acknowledge good news a bit sooner it would help build confidence in their analysis.
They don't trust the public with the acknowledgement of good news. In case we all lose our heads over it and behave recklessly.
IMV that's utterly wrong. They do do good news: e.g. the vaccinations. And they have mentioned things like the SA experience in the past. But they can't report that as certainty; they have to say things like 'indications' and 'unsure', because that's the accurate way of describing it. They have to be as near truthful as they can be.
And perhaps, just perhaps, the stuff they see every day makes it slightly harder to be optimistic. After all, I've an optimistic chap, and back in mid-2020 I was convinced all of this would be over by the middle of this year.
I'd advise extreme caution over case numbers in the upcoming fortnight, like the bins there's a massive Christmas effect
Last year those numbers would have come from PCR tests.
This year we have many millions obsessing about their LFTs.
Another thing which is different is that on 04/01/21 when the last lockdown was announced there were over 30k in hospital with covid compared with under 8k now.
They'd also managed about 1m vaccinations compared with 130m now.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Agree. Should help as many people to get vaccinations as possible. For the rest it's their choice what they put their bodies. I don't want that choice to be taken from me either, even though I am very much in favour of vaccination.
There may need to be very significant constraints on the movement of unvaccinated people in the interests of public safety, but those measures should only be as much as is necessary, as with all such restrictions. It shouldn't be a punishment.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
All 9 vulnerable groups were jabbed by 15th Feb. When the lockdown imposed in early Jan the original target to reopen schools was after Feb half term. This was actually pushed back until after the jabbing was complete.
Cases and hospitalisations were showing a clear decline by early March. It wasn’t “lucky” that problems didn’t occur : it was a sensible judgement in the situation. And over than schools being open, we remained in lockdown for a further month until anything else reopened.
You do know the decision was made in mid-January and not in February? It was only announced then, although there were leaks in the Times much earlier.
Just checking...
Yes, the target reopening date was set in Jan, conditional on sufficient progress on vaccination and reduction in cases being met. It was. What’s your point?
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
Issue is always the untrained fools who go out unprepared in the wrong clothing. Hint carry a OS map because phones have a habit of not helping at just the wrong moment.
Mrs Eek particular remembers scrambling up a hill in the Lakes this summer to be greeted by a Japanese tourist in a pristine white summer dress (it was about to rain) and slip on sandals.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Gracious.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Yes well you are doing it wrong. I have done most of the munros North of the Great Glen (can't be arsed with all the overgrown hills further south) including all of Skye, a fuck of a lot of the Pyrenees and a lot of other stuff, and on a couple of occasions I have been slightly uncertain about where exactly I was. And once I got slightly benighted in the Fannichs. Doing it right is not difficult.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
The obese already pay significant taxes.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
I'll join you in the riot.
If I did something daft I think I'd feel compelled to donate a suitable amount to Mountain Rescue, though.
I've paid for National Park permits in the US, but it is a bit easier to draw a line there.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Agree. Should help as many people to get vaccinations as possible. For the rest it's their choice what they put their bodies. I don't want that choice to be taken from me either, even though I am very much in favour of vaccination.
There may need to be very significant constraints on the movement of unvaccinated people in the interests of public safety, but those measures should only be as much as is necessary, as with all such restrictions. It shouldn't be a punishment.
tldr the unvaccinated have the right not be vaccinated; they don't have the right to infect others or put unbearable strain on the health system. Measures should constrain the second part of that.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
Charge people for the helicopter and they can either insure themselves, or not. Works like that in France which is why I belong to the Austrian Alpine Club of GB, insurance and mountain hut discounts thrown in with membership.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Gracious.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Yes well you are doing it wrong. I have done most of the munros North of the Great Glen (can't be arsed with all the overgrown hills further south) including all of Skye, a fuck of a lot of the Pyrenees and a lot of other stuff, and on a couple of occasions I have been slightly uncertain about where exactly I was. And once I got slightly benighted in the Fannichs. Doing it right is not difficult.
You will note that the injuries detailed (except perhaps the snow blindness) were bad luck, not 'doing it wrong'.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Gracious.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Oh, I am so jealous (not of the injuries...). I failed to do the Cape Wrath Trail twenty years ago, when I had a minor fall on the second day heading down from the bealach below Streap. I was blooming lucky not to end up in a really bad situation, and I wrenched my knee. I still made Cape Wrath on that trip, but by a very different route as I let my knee recover.
With hindsight, I was too inexperienced to try the CWT. I could have made it, but when the conditions changed, I made a couple of bad decisions that in lesser terrain would have been fine, but not up there.
But I'd still love to do it. I love that area. It's on my bucket list; uncompleted business.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
We have established what you are, madam, now we are just haggling over price.
It is the principle. You are advocating charging for using the NHS but who gets to draw the line over who should pay and who shouldn't.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Gracious.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Yes well you are doing it wrong. I have done most of the munros North of the Great Glen (can't be arsed with all the overgrown hills further south) including all of Skye, a fuck of a lot of the Pyrenees and a lot of other stuff, and on a couple of occasions I have been slightly uncertain about where exactly I was. And once I got slightly benighted in the Fannichs. Doing it right is not difficult.
You will note that the injuries detailed (except perhaps the snow blindness) were bad luck, not 'doing it wrong'.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
I suspect hill walking/mountaineering is a net good thing for NHS expenditure due to being fit preventing other disease (and, to be callous, the occasional relatively young death also saving long term expenditure).
If we're going down the taxing cost to the NHS route, then we probably should hammer motorists even more. Driving instead of active transport makes people less fit. Road accidents cost money. Air pollution costs a lot of money.
It's a bit of a slippery slope, I think. Taxing things that are bought is one thing - and it can directly reduce sale of harfmful things - but taxing behaviours is a lot more tricky.
(On an earlier question, all the hill walking clubs I've been involved in have done fundraising for local mountain rescue and some have contributed volunteers, too)
"The key bit is that it takes about 10-14 days from infection to needing hospital. And if you have symptoms, you'll probably test positive 4-7 days into infection.
So there's roughly a week from testing positive to becoming a hospital admission. 2/10"
It's as I've been saying for the past 2 weeks - it's will only be the tail end of this / early next week that we will know whether Omicron results in hospital cases or not... And we can't use data from elsewhere to identify whether it's an issue or not because the population profile is so different.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
The obese already pay significant taxes.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
And the cost to the NHS remains gigantic compared to Hillwalking.
Would you tax team sports, running too? I think we need to do absolutely everything possible to get more people active and outdoors.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
Yes and yes. But that's not all.
I think from my knowledge of Russia - which isn't complete, so I could easily be wrong - would say they're suspicious of NATO less because they think it will invade than because it gives help and support to countries they think of as either being hostile to them and their interests (e.g. intervening in Kosovo) or makes it more difficult to take back countries they regard as inalienably Russian that have somehow gone off track (Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia). Especially Ukraine. Remember Russia grew out of a state based on Kiev.
That's why they're so aggressive. They are paranoid not about direct invasion but about being made smaller and weaker so they can be dominated by others when they think given their size and resources they should be doing the dominating.
That article @IanB2 linked to is interesting on this point given the propaganda being forced on Russian children (especially) seems designed to reinforce this worldview.
And my recollection of the radio piece about the Russian media angle was that they are painting it as a story of increasing US/western aggression, aiming to get Ukraine into NATO and turn it into an anti-Russian state (even a cursory survey of Ukrainian history would uncover good reasons for being so!), and they claim to recently have tabled some comprehensive peace proposal to the US and so it is now in the American's hands whether events move toward peace or war.....
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
We have established what you are, madam, now we are just haggling over price.
It is the principle. You are advocating charging for using the NHS but who gets to draw the line over who should pay and who shouldn't.
The principle of taxing unhealthy choices was breached decades ago, it isn't original.
As for who decides, there's a very clean and simple answer to that: The elected Parliament.
If we aren't happy with what they decide, we can kick the buggers out and elect a new one at the next election.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
All 9 vulnerable groups were jabbed by 15th Feb. When the lockdown imposed in early Jan the original target to reopen schools was after Feb half term. This was actually pushed back until after the jabbing was complete.
Cases and hospitalisations were showing a clear decline by early March. It wasn’t “lucky” that problems didn’t occur : it was a sensible judgement in the situation. And over than schools being open, we remained in lockdown for a further month until anything else reopened.
You do know the decision was made in mid-January and not in February? It was only announced then, although there were leaks in the Times much earlier.
Just checking...
Yes, the target reopening date was set in Jan, conditional on sufficient progress on vaccination and reduction in cases being met. It was. What’s your point?
But it wasn't 'a target date'. That was the date they were reopening whatever happened. In fact it turned out OK but even if it hadn't they were still going ahead, for the reasons I outlined above, even if the pandemic wasn't under control and cases and deaths soared as result. They are actually quite open about it within education itself which is one reason why they've become so hated. Further, the ridiculous restrictions they imposed showed they knew it was a gamble, but actually made it even more difficult to carry on a normal education than it had been online (which should not have been possible).
My point is (a) you don't know what you're talking about and are pushing a false narrative that suits you (b) you're being abusive about it against those people who had to deal with fallout and (c) you're overlooking the obvious - this feeds in to a much greater problem about civil servants making decisions to suit themselves despite the risk and damage it caused to everyone else.
Which, to come back to another point, is what we may be facing next week. Counterintuitively, this is about the government enforcing further restrictions on the rest of us for no good reason so they can continue to work from home which they seem to enjoy - when they don't need to.
If you're comfortable with people of such selfishness and poor judgement being in charge of us, I'm not. We got lucky on March 8th but we won't get lucky if we have a further lockdown next week.
The only way for Boris to recover given recent stories is effectively to return to being fun times Boris and keep as much open as possible and refuse to impose another lockdown. He simply does not have any authority left to impose severe restrictions again now so may as well focus on resisting SAGE demands to lockdown, which will go down well with his base while encouraging everyone to get their boosters which is still the best way of reducing hospitalisations anyway
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
Yes and yes. But that's not all.
I think from my knowledge of Russia - which isn't complete, so I could easily be wrong - would say they're suspicious of NATO less because they think it will invade than because it gives help and support to countries they think of as either being hostile to them and their interests (e.g. intervening in Kosovo) or makes it more difficult to take back countries they regard as inalienably Russian that have somehow gone off track (Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia). Especially Ukraine. Remember Russia grew out of a state based on Kiev.
That's why they're so aggressive. They are paranoid not about direct invasion but about being made smaller and weaker so they can be dominated by others when they think given their size and resources they should be doing the dominating.
That article @IanB2 linked to is interesting on this point given the propaganda being forced on Russian children (especially) seems designed to reinforce this worldview.
Good post; old memories die hard, especially when they are reinforced by national myths. Populations and 'nations' have swirled and swayed across what we know today as 'Russia'. Niggle though; not sure Georgia should be included.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
I suspect that, after the fractious Cabinet meeting the other day, there will be resignations if more severe restrictions are to be imposed.
Given that the Opposition are all in favour of the increased restrictions, it will probably take Graham Brady to point out that there will be a hundred letters on his desk if the government goes ahead.
I think that Johnson might be able to get away with a circuit breaker, but only under the following conditions:
1. An obvious and substantial uptick in the total number of Covid patients clogging the hospitals, which can be directly attributed to the rise in cases 2. Cases haven't peaked and started falling again as in South Africa, i.e. there's good evidence that the pressure isn't going to ease anytime soon 3. A generous business support package to stop half the hospitality and leisure sector being wiped out this time. Claiming that furlough (or, failing that, very generous grants to cover wages instead) is not needed if, for example, restaurants are still technically allowed to trade - but only with the rule of six, 2m distancing, and outdoors in January - won't cut it with anyone 4. That the Parliamentary vote approving the lockdown states that it is strictly time limited, and that all of the restrictions are going to be dumped at the end of it, so that both people and businesses know when all the Covid crap is going in the bin and can plan with confidence accordingly
Much of the Tory Party, the economy and the citizenry are reaching the end of their patience with being told to keep making sacrifices every time the hospitals get busy. But if all of the above conditions are met then I think Johnson's fractious backbenchers might be willing to wear one more lockdown, of no more than four weeks' duration, if it's presented as a means to defer some of the infections whilst the booster campaign is still in progress. And that's it.
Who is the booster campaign still serving? Largely people who won’t get sick. Who are getting it to “do their bit to avoid lockdowns” etc. Introduce lockdowns anyway and they won’t bother. And Israel is about to commence boosters of boosters. It’s never ending. Johnson’s already played the “irreversible, no going back” card. I don’t see how he can play it again.
The first company to produce a combined Covid, flu and rhinovirus jab will make a fortune.
The first to produce a similar vaccine administered nasally will make a much bigger fortune.
The common cold vaccine and the sea lice vaccine are known as the holy grails of the industry
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
If the banker is here on a 6 month placement, they are an ex-pat. If they have moved here permanently, they are an immigrant.
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
An expat is an emigrant who isn't permanently settled.
It's a perfectly legitimate word to use, but if they are permanently settled then the word is emigrant.
The word is never immigrant. Immigrant is from the other perspective. Using immigrant to mean expat is as incorrect as using credit to mean debit.
Migrant - someone who moves permanently from poorer to richer country. Migrant worker - someone who moves temporarily from poorer to richer country.
Ex pat - someone who moves permanently from richer to poorer country. Ex pat worker - someone who moves temporarily from richer to poorer country.
Refugee - someone who moves from failed country. Aid worker - someone who moves to failed country.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
Sorry I can't agree with that. Mrs Eek eats way less than me, does more way exercise and still puts on weight.
The difference is I'm always warmer than her so my body seems to burn things away while Mrs Eek's body simply doesn't.
When you start looking into things it's remarkable how little we still know about how the human body works in large numbers of areas.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
Issue is always the untrained fools who go out unprepared in the wrong clothing. Hint carry a OS map because phones have a habit of not helping at just the wrong moment.
Mrs Eek particular remembers scrambling up a hill in the Lakes this summer to be greeted by a Japanese tourist in a pristine white summer dress (it was about to rain) and slip on sandals.
I once overheard a group of mountain rescuers in a bar, after picking up one of the aforementioned tourists who would otherwise have spend the night on the mountain.
To say they were less than complementary about some of the idiots who call on their services, would be something of an understatement!
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
Yes and yes. But that's not all.
I think from my knowledge of Russia - which isn't complete, so I could easily be wrong - would say they're suspicious of NATO less because they think it will invade than because it gives help and support to countries they think of as either being hostile to them and their interests (e.g. intervening in Kosovo) or makes it more difficult to take back countries they regard as inalienably Russian that have somehow gone off track (Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia). Especially Ukraine. Remember Russia grew out of a state based on Kiev.
That's why they're so aggressive. They are paranoid not about direct invasion but about being made smaller and weaker so they can be dominated by others when they think given their size and resources they should be doing the dominating.
That article @IanB2 linked to is interesting on this point given the propaganda being forced on Russian children (especially) seems designed to reinforce this worldview.
Good post; old memories die hard, especially when they are reinforced by national myths. Populations and 'nations' have swirled and swayed across what we know today as 'Russia'. Niggle though; not sure Georgia should be included.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Gracious.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Ah, a Munroist! Good effort.
I'm on about 200 but stuck there because I can't leave the parents / in-laws. One day...
Never had an incident, despite nearly 100 of those being in winter conditions. Closest to an incident was near heatstroke on the Ring of Steall one July, despite a 4am start. I prefer -13C to +25C...
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
The obese already pay significant taxes.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
And the cost to the NHS remains gigantic compared to Hillwalking.
Would you tax team sports, running too? I think we need to do absolutely everything possible to get more people active and outdoors.
Is there any analysis that the cost to the NHS isn't already met via VAT etc and lower life expectancy leading to lower pension payments too? I very much doubt it.
I'm not advocating taxing people being athletic, so I don't know why you're aiming that at me. I said that which has a very significant externality its reasonable to charge for and that was decided decades ago. We do that with food (so obesity is covered), alcohol (also covering obesity) and tobacco already. No reason that shouldn't be extended to the unvaccinated too.
Those who exercise on hills are a distraction to the argument. Pure whataboutery.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
My mother was Russian-born, uininterested in politics after an overdose of it in her youth, but retaining quite strong feelings for the country. For her, the willingness of many people in some of the neighbouring countries to help the Nazis was unforgiveable (a cousin starved to death in the siege of Leningrad so it wasn't just abstract for her), and she was especially hostile to Poland and the Ukraine for combining anti-Russian feeling with elements of anti-semitism. It's all a long time ago and nearly everyone involved is dead now, but I imagine that the sense that a great country which has been invaded in (just) living memory has been undermined and is being gnawed at by hostile forces has carried over to many in the next generations.
I'm not defending any of this - obviously Stalin's policies had a lot to do with the neighbours' hostility - but I imagine the sense of loss that many Russians feel, and I do think that we let Gorbachev down with false reassurances that we wouldn't expand NATO to Russia's borders if he was relaxed about their joining the EU. Putin taking a tough line will certainly be popular, though I doubt if many really want a major war with Ukraine, and I don't think it will happen - Putin is making a show of force, but it can't possibly be in his interest to occupy an area where most people, unlike the Crimea, are with good reason viscerally hostile - it'd be Afghanistan all over again, writ large.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Ms Riddoch is an independent independista (so to speak) not SNP AFAIK.
This permits stuff - are you thinking of the camping overnight issue esp in Lomondside? Litter, mess, crowding, etc.? That's different from breaking a leg on the high tops and having to be rescued.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
The obese already pay significant taxes.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
It is possible to get fat on untaxed foodstuffs.
So those who get fat on untaxed foods and are treated for health conditions are taking a free ride on the others. As with the unvaxxed.
And you would make a pretty bad libertarian if you proposed going through people's grocery bills to determine if they are eligible for free healthcare.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
We have established what you are, madam, now we are just haggling over price.
It is the principle. You are advocating charging for using the NHS but who gets to draw the line over who should pay and who shouldn't.
This is one of those rhetorical questions which just don't work. You say "where do you draw the line?" I am meant to say oh yeah I see your point, it's more difficult than I thought. In fact I say, immediately under anti vaxxers. Next?
Compare
"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"
Meant to be a conundrum, but the short answer is that the smart money is probably not on Eve.
I am not sure Johnson's popularity is linked to what he says about Christmas. Isn't it more about the fact that his very profound limitations and general disdain for the electorate have finally been exposed for all to see?
The good news for the Tories is that it does all seem to be about Johnson rather than them generally. That means they should get a very strong bounce once he is gone. However, they need to get the timing of that right as beyond Sunak - who is himself exceptionally limited - there do not seem to be any even remotely credible candidates to replace him.
Long-term, though, Johnson has done exceptional damage to his party and to the country. The Parliamentary party is packed full of populist nationalist culture warriors with a very strong aversion to geopolitical and trade realities, the rule of law, liberty and democracy. That will not end well for either the Tories or, more importantly, for all of us.
Agreed except I'm not sure about a replacement turning it around. In the spirit of the season I think it's a case of "Jingle bells, Boris smells, Rishi does as well." Why would an apolitical floater vote Tory next time regardless of who the leader is? The reasons are few and so too, therefore, could be the number who do. My lay of Lab majority at 6 is not, right now, my favourite bet.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
The obese already pay significant taxes.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
It is possible to get fat on untaxed foodstuffs.
So those who get fat on untaxed foods and are treated for health conditions are taking a free ride on the others. As with the unvaxxed.
And you would make a pretty bad libertarian if you proposed going through people's grocery bills to determine if they are eligible for free healthcare.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
We have established what you are, madam, now we are just haggling over price.
It is the principle. You are advocating charging for using the NHS but who gets to draw the line over who should pay and who shouldn't.
This is one of those rhetorical questions which just don't work. You say "where do you draw the line?" I am meant to say oh yeah I see your point, it's more difficult than I thought. In fact I say, immediately under anti vaxxers. Next?
Compare
"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"
Meant to be a conundrum, but the short answer is that the smart money is probably not on Eve.
She could have identified as male, surely? Then as the white collar worker...
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
Issue is always the untrained fools who go out unprepared in the wrong clothing. Hint carry a OS map because phones have a habit of not helping at just the wrong moment.
Mrs Eek particular remembers scrambling up a hill in the Lakes this summer to be greeted by a Japanese tourist in a pristine white summer dress (it was about to rain) and slip on sandals.
I once overheard a group of mountain rescuers in a bar, after picking up one of the aforementioned tourists who would otherwise have spend the night on the mountain.
To say they were less than complementary about some of the idiots who call on their services, would be something of an understatement!
They always go when the call comes in though.
The issue is they never know if it's a grade A idiot who went unprepared or a mate who has just had a lot of bad luck.
The best approach if it became necessary is as @Ishmael_Z points out to bill those people who don't subscribe to an organisation - having a fee that is removed by joining an organisation may be enough to encourage people to both join the organisation and to spend 30 seconds getting organised before they went walking.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
The obese already pay significant taxes.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
It is possible to get fat on untaxed foodstuffs.
So those who get fat on untaxed foods and are treated for health conditions are taking a free ride on the others. As with the unvaxxed.
And you would make a pretty bad libertarian if you proposed going through people's grocery bills to determine if they are eligible for free healthcare.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
Yes and yes. But that's not all.
I think from my knowledge of Russia - which isn't complete, so I could easily be wrong - would say they're suspicious of NATO less because they think it will invade than because it gives help and support to countries they think of as either being hostile to them and their interests (e.g. intervening in Kosovo) or makes it more difficult to take back countries they regard as inalienably Russian that have somehow gone off track (Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia). Especially Ukraine. Remember Russia grew out of a state based on Kiev.
That's why they're so aggressive. They are paranoid not about direct invasion but about being made smaller and weaker so they can be dominated by others when they think given their size and resources they should be doing the dominating.
That article @IanB2 linked to is interesting on this point given the propaganda being forced on Russian children (especially) seems designed to reinforce this worldview.
Good post; old memories die hard, especially when they are reinforced by national myths. Populations and 'nations' have swirled and swayed across what we know today as 'Russia'. Niggle though; not sure Georgia should be included.
They want Stalin!
He's dead! Jeremy Corbyn is alive and available nonetheless, could we send him?
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
Issue is always the untrained fools who go out unprepared in the wrong clothing. Hint carry a OS map because phones have a habit of not helping at just the wrong moment.
Mrs Eek particular remembers scrambling up a hill in the Lakes this summer to be greeted by a Japanese tourist in a pristine white summer dress (it was about to rain) and slip on sandals.
I once overheard a group of mountain rescuers in a bar, after picking up one of the aforementioned tourists who would otherwise have spend the night on the mountain.
To say they were less than complementary about some of the idiots who call on their services, would be something of an understatement!
They always go when the call comes in though.
As with lifeboat crews. All volunteers, too, like the mountain rescue teams.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
All 9 vulnerable groups were jabbed by 15th Feb. When the lockdown imposed in early Jan the original target to reopen schools was after Feb half term. This was actually pushed back until after the jabbing was complete.
Cases and hospitalisations were showing a clear decline by early March. It wasn’t “lucky” that problems didn’t occur : it was a sensible judgement in the situation. And over than schools being open, we remained in lockdown for a further month until anything else reopened.
You do know the decision was made in mid-January and not in February? It was only announced then, although there were leaks in the Times much earlier.
Just checking...
Yes, the target reopening date was set in Jan, conditional on sufficient progress on vaccination and reduction in cases being met. It was. What’s your point?
But it wasn't 'a target date'. That was the date they were reopening whatever happened. In fact it turned out OK but even if it hadn't they were still going ahead, for the reasons I outlined above, even if the pandemic wasn't under control and cases and deaths soared as result. They are actually quite open about it within education itself which is one reason why they've become so hated. Further, the ridiculous restrictions they imposed showed they knew it was a gamble, but actually made it even more difficult to carry on a normal education than it had been online (which should not have been possible).
My point is (a) you don't know what you're talking about and are pushing a false narrative that suits you (b) you're being abusive about it against those people who had to deal with fallout and (c) you're overlooking the obvious - this feeds in to a much greater problem about civil servants making decisions to suit themselves despite the risk and damage it caused to everyone else.
Which, to come back to another point, is what we may be facing next week. Counterintuitively, this is about the government enforcing further restrictions on the rest of us for no good reason so they can continue to work from home which they seem to enjoy - when they don't need to.
If you're comfortable with people of such selfishness and poor judgement being in charge of us, I'm not. We got lucky on March 8th but we won't get lucky if we have a further lockdown next week.
Go on then, when would you have decided it was “safe” to reopo
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
No it wasn't. That was about a week after they had reopened. In any case, the decision was made weeks before they could possibly have known how long it would take.
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
All 9 vulnerable groups were jabbed by 15th Feb. When the lockdown imposed in early Jan the original target to reopen schools was after Feb half term. This was actually pushed back until after the jabbing was complete.
Cases and hospitalisations were showing a clear decline by early March. It wasn’t “lucky” that problems didn’t occur : it was a sensible judgement in the situation. And over than schools being open, we remained in lockdown for a further month until anything else reopened.
You do know the decision was made in mid-January and not in February? It was only announced then, although there were leaks in the Times much earlier.
Just checking...
Yes, the target reopening date was set in Jan, conditional on sufficient progress on vaccination and reduction in cases being met. It was. What’s your point?
But it wasn't 'a target date'. That was the date they were reopening whatever happened. In fact it turned out OK but even if it hadn't they were still going ahead, for the reasons I outlined above, even if the pandemic wasn't under control and cases and deaths soared as result. They are actually quite open about it within education itself which is one reason why they've become so hated. Further, the ridiculous restrictions they imposed showed they knew it was a gamble, but actually made it even more difficult to carry on a normal education than it had been online (which should not have been possible).
My point is (a) you don't know what you're talking about and are pushing a false narrative that suits you (b) you're being abusive about it against those people who had to deal with fallout and (c) you're overlooking the obvious - this feeds in to a much greater problem about civil servants making decisions to suit themselves despite the risk and damage it caused to everyone else.
Which, to come back to another point, is what we may be facing next week. Counterintuitively, this is about the government enforcing further restrictions on the rest of us for no good reason so they can continue to work from home which they seem to enjoy - when they don't need to.
If you're comfortable with people of such selfishness and poor judgement being in charge of us, I'm not. We got lucky on March 8th but we won't get lucky if we have a further lockdown next week.
You seem remarkably angry at people who came up with a plan that worked. What date would you have deemed it “safe” for schools to reopen?
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
"Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies."
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Russia's enormous size and geographic position make that more difficult though. We're an island surrounded by military allies. Our military is mostly used in war zones a long way off or for humanitarian missions at home and abroad.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
It’s one of the crazy things about Russia, I know their past must haunt them with being invaded by Napoleon and Hitler but do they seriously really believe that any European countries or the US are going to invade them? Do they feel threatened by the various Stans to their south?
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
My mother was Russian-born, uininterested in politics after an overdose of it in her youth, but retaining quite strong feelings for the country. For her, the willingness of many people in some of the neighbouring countries to help the Nazis was unforgiveable (a cousin starved to death in the siege of Leningrad so it wasn't just abstract for her), and she was especially hostile to Poland and the Ukraine for combining anti-Russian feeling with elements of anti-semitism. It's all a long time ago and nearly everyone involved is dead now, but I imagine that the sense that a great country which has been invaded in (just) living memory has been undermined and is being gnawed at by hostile forces has carried over to many in the next generations.
I'm not defending any of this - obviously Stalin's policies had a lot to do with the neighbours' hostility - but I imagine the sense of loss that many Russians feel, and I do think that we let Gorbachev down with false reassurances that we wouldn't expand NATO to Russia's borders if he was relaxed about their joining the EU. Putin taking a tough line will certainly be popular, though I doubt if many really want a major war with Ukraine, and I don't think it will happen - Putin is making a show of force, but it can't possibly be in his interest to occupy an area where most people, unlike the Crimea, are with good reason viscerally hostile - it'd be Afghanistan all over again, writ large.
I once read a book - possibly by Robert Service, but I can't be sure - that suggested a big mistake was made in not inviting Russia under Yeltsin to apply for NATO and EU membership.
He thought it would have been at least explored and done a lot to defuse the more recent tensions over both of them even if ultimately the membership hadn't been taken up.
It would also have bolstered the Russian economy and strengthened its democratic elements, which as we have seen recently were very weak.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Really? Anyone is allowed one fuckup, but "various mishaps" = perhaps get some training, maps, compasses, stuff like that?
Gracious.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Oh, I am so jealous (not of the injuries...). I failed to do the Cape Wrath Trail twenty years ago, when I had a minor fall on the second day heading down from the bealach below Streap. I was blooming lucky not to end up in a really bad situation, and I wrenched my knee. I still made Cape Wrath on that trip, but by a very different route as I let my knee recover.
With hindsight, I was too inexperienced to try the CWT. I could have made it, but when the conditions changed, I made a couple of bad decisions that in lesser terrain would have been fine, but not up there.
But I'd still love to do it. I love that area. It's on my bucket list; uncompleted business.
It was absolutely glorious. Two days of really terrible weather, otherwise fine.
I did it in two weeks and was resupplied by my parents in Kinlochlewe. Helped that I know the Highlands fairly well so no nav problems, and could set my own pace being solo.
The scary bit is between Glenfinnan and Glen Shiel, where you have no phone signal whatsoever.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Indeed. Either you let people behave within the law or you change the law.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
How much of a drain are mountaineers?
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I agree in principle.
Let them come for the obese first.
The obese already pay significant taxes.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
It is possible to get fat on untaxed foodstuffs.
So those who get fat on untaxed foods and are treated for health conditions are taking a free ride on the others. As with the unvaxxed.
And you would make a pretty bad libertarian if you proposed going through people's grocery bills to determine if they are eligible for free healthcare.
Possible but quite improbable. Its also possible someone smokes entirely from imported, untaxed cigarettes. Or drinks entirely from imported, untaxed alcohol.
Taxing externalities doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. Its just like Joe Biden: Acceptable under the circumstances.
17 Labour leads in a row with the new FocalPoint survey this morning.
Note however that while Labour leads by 7% over the Tories, Starmer only leads Boris by 3% as preferred PM. Starmer underpolling Labour in particular while Boris does as well as the Tory voteshare
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Problem solved.
It is the principle I don't like. Make vaccination a legal requirement. But don't discriminate against someone choosing to do something (inject something into their bodies) that is not a legal requirement.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
You can make an argument that mountaineering helps the NHS by keeping fit.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Ms Riddoch is an independent independista (so to speak) not SNP AFAIK.
This permits stuff - are you thinking of the camping overnight issue esp in Lomondside? Litter, mess, crowding, etc.? That's different from breaking a leg on the high tops and having to be rescued.
No, I just remember an article someone wrote after a number of mountain rescues.
Comments
That is the way the two terms should be applied. Likewise with Brits abroad.
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
1h
This is what I was talking about. Evidence Omicron is milder has been available for some time. Doesn't mean we're out of the woods, or anything like it. But if officials showed a willingness to acknowledge good news a bit sooner it would help build confidence in their analysis.
If you accept the principle of "polluter pays" then you would need a sliding scale.
Anti-vax tax: £100. Mountaineering tax: 25p.
https://khalatnost.wordpress.com/about/
Based on the novel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblomov
As for your abusive final paragraph which is so typical of the mindless, ignorant nastiness we have had to put up with and the reason why so many teachers are now about to quit, you weren't the one having to deal with the onerous restrictions imposed as a corollary to reopening that were in the event probably not meaningful in suppressing the spread of the virus but did make teaching impossible.
They got lucky. We all did. But it was the right decision made for all the wrong reasons by a bunch of people who had proven in advance they didn't care about the virus, didn't care about science, didn't care about science and didn't even care about the law.
If you can't deal with those facts, I'd advise you to keep quiet.
But, tbh, my hillwalking friends and family have cost the NHS, Coastguard and volunteer Mountain Rescue teams thousands upon thousands with our various mishaps.
There is a pocket of the SNP (Lesley Riddoch, I think) who want to introduce permits for walking in the Cairngorms. I would riot.
Only because their economy has fallen so far due to utter mismanagement. I mean, Canada are ahead of them in GDP terms.
That's not to congratulate them on their military, which, nukes aside, is a bit of a hollow shell - just see the figures I gave earlier. They're trying to maintain world superpower forces on a GDP that barely makes it a local power. Something has to give: and that's quality.
(We've faced the same issue, and gone down the route of *trying* to maintain quality but reduce numbers. This is what Russia should have done.)
Yes there are still uncertainties. We still need caution. But I really think we are going to be ok.
They're a continent wide power surrounded by many states that are at best neutral and at worst would be hostile given half a chance. I can see why they feel quantity over quality might be important on that basis.
And yes we do do it for fags and booze. But this is the obverse of that. It is people not doing something not people doing something. It is people not wanting to ingest a "poison".
Her personal effect of any restrictions, will be limited to her inability to winter in Tuscany or weekend in Barcelona.
In the recreational aviation community, every clubhouse has at least one collecting tin for the local air ambulance, and there’s a steady stream of events to raise money for them.
"From plague to polio: how do pandemics end?
History provides a window into how the coronavirus outbreak might come to a close"
https://www.ft.com/content/4eabdc7a-f8e1-48d5-9592-05441493f652
It's a perfectly legitimate word to use, but if they are permanently settled then the word is emigrant.
The word is never immigrant. Immigrant is from the other perspective. Using immigrant to mean expat is as incorrect as using credit to mean debit.
Given he's "done Brexit", and he's "done Covid" anyone sane might have left in September to spend more time with his money. As I said then, it's all downhill from here and everything since then has shown that my view then was correct.
Hell of a nice guy and the fittest man I've ever met. Could literally do a run up and down four mountains and not be out of breath at the end.
I've raised a significant chunk for Mountain Rescue over the last few years - maybe 5% of a new defender...
Fast peak and fast decline, as South Africa shows
+
less severe symptoms resulting in less hospitalisation, less use of ICU and shorter stays
+
booster roll out
+
highly vaccinated population and large numbers of prior infection
>
omicron's faster spread and the extent to which omicron can bypass vaccination.
I'm less convinced however that the politicians will have the nerve to hold the line on this! My expectation that we'll get to New Year without another lockdown announced is now rather less than 50%. Partly because they are risk averse, partly because they will be bounced into it by a fearful public led by a fearful broadcast media.
The only potential threat to Russia is from China in the east so could easily understand a large military focus there but in the west - it’s nuts.
Their problem is that by their actions they ensure that NATO needs to point their guns at them - Germany does not suddenly want to roll tanks into Moscow.
Anti-vaxxers and mountaineers both exacerbate the NHS capacity problem. The NHS is there to support our society.
This year we have many millions obsessing about their LFTs.
Cases and hospitalisations were showing a clear decline by early March. It wasn’t “lucky” that problems didn’t occur : it was a sensible judgement in the situation. And over than schools being open, we remained in lockdown for a further month until anything else reopened.
Nice thread overview at https://twitter.com/focaldataHQ/status/1473584393478365194
CONBlue circle 34%
LABRed circle41%
LDOrange circle9%
GRNGreen circle4%
SNPYellow circle4%
OTHER 6%
Gives Lab 311 seats, Tories 249 (which is great compared to elsewhere) and LD 6.
@Birdyword
·
6h
There it goes, the South African R0 is below one, from as high as possibly 4 in late November.
https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1473494720634515458
If they're an excessive one, then yes a tax may be suitable. If its a negligible one, then there's no need and besides perhaps the VAT on mountaineering equipment already covers it.
Anything that is a significant externality as opposed to incidental it is reasonable to tax.
I think from my knowledge of Russia - which isn't complete, so I could easily be wrong - would say they're suspicious of NATO less because they think it will invade than because it gives help and support to countries they think of as either being hostile to them and their interests (e.g. intervening in Kosovo) or makes it more difficult to take back countries they regard as inalienably Russian that have somehow gone off track (Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia). Especially Ukraine. Remember Russia grew out of a state based on Kiev.
That's why they're so aggressive. They are paranoid not about direct invasion but about being made smaller and weaker so they can be dominated by others when they think given their size and resources they should be doing the dominating.
That article @IanB2 linked to is interesting on this point given the propaganda being forced on Russian children (especially) seems designed to reinforce this worldview.
I have 282 Munros, charging through the Corbetts, and completed a solo Cape Wrath trail last year.
I've attended a number of courses at Glenmore Lodge and used to train uni students in walk leadership.
Mishaps include a broken leg, broken ankle, two dislocated shoulders (me!), snow blindness and sudden chest pain.
Starmer 37%
Johnson 34%
Don't know 28%
Focaldata point out these figures differ from YouGov because they add a second push to try to get people to make a decision. This is also why they think Boris does better here because when pressed the Don't knows go for Boris rather than Starmer.
Just checking...
What if you reach the end of the circuit breaker and 1&2 criteria are still met?
And perhaps, just perhaps, the stuff they see every day makes it slightly harder to be optimistic. After all, I've an optimistic chap, and back in mid-2020 I was convinced all of this would be over by the middle of this year.
They'd also managed about 1m vaccinations compared with 130m now.
There may need to be very significant constraints on the movement of unvaccinated people in the interests of public safety, but those measures should only be as much as is necessary, as with all such restrictions. It shouldn't be a punishment.
Let them come for the obese first.
Mrs Eek particular remembers scrambling up a hill in the Lakes this summer to be greeted by a Japanese tourist in a pristine white summer dress (it was about to rain) and slip on sandals.
There's no VAT on healthy foods, there is VAT on lots of unhealthy snacks. Plus there's VAT on restaurants and takeaways too.
Anyone who's going home and cooking their own meal never pays VAT on their meal. Anyone who's going out for McDonalds etc there's 20% on that going straight to HMRC.
EDIT: And if they're having a sugary drink, there's now a tax on that too. Plus like with petrol, there's VAT on top of the tax!!
If I did something daft I think I'd feel compelled to donate a suitable amount to Mountain Rescue, though.
I've paid for National Park permits in the US, but it is a bit easier to draw a line there.
With hindsight, I was too inexperienced to try the CWT. I could have made it, but when the conditions changed, I made a couple of bad decisions that in lesser terrain would have been fine, but not up there.
But I'd still love to do it. I love that area. It's on my bucket list; uncompleted business.
It is the principle. You are advocating charging for using the NHS but who gets to draw the line over who should pay and who shouldn't.
If we're going down the taxing cost to the NHS route, then we probably should hammer motorists even more. Driving instead of active transport makes people less fit. Road accidents cost money. Air pollution costs a lot of money.
It's a bit of a slippery slope, I think. Taxing things that are bought is one thing - and it can directly reduce sale of harfmful things - but taxing behaviours is a lot more tricky.
(On an earlier question, all the hill walking clubs I've been involved in have done fundraising for local mountain rescue and some have contributed volunteers, too)
https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1473362907471699979
"The key bit is that it takes about 10-14 days from infection to needing hospital. And if you have symptoms, you'll probably test positive 4-7 days into infection.
So there's roughly a week from testing positive to becoming a hospital admission. 2/10"
It's as I've been saying for the past 2 weeks - it's will only be the tail end of this / early next week that we will know whether Omicron results in hospital cases or not... And we can't use data from elsewhere to identify whether it's an issue or not because the population profile is so different.
Would you tax team sports, running too? I think we need to do absolutely everything possible to get more people active and outdoors.
As for who decides, there's a very clean and simple answer to that: The elected Parliament.
If we aren't happy with what they decide, we can kick the buggers out and elect a new one at the next election.
My point is (a) you don't know what you're talking about and are pushing a false narrative that suits you (b) you're being abusive about it against those people who had to deal with fallout and (c) you're overlooking the obvious - this feeds in to a much greater problem about civil servants making decisions to suit themselves despite the risk and damage it caused to everyone else.
Which, to come back to another point, is what we may be facing next week. Counterintuitively, this is about the government enforcing further restrictions on the rest of us for no good reason so they can continue to work from home which they seem to enjoy - when they don't need to.
If you're comfortable with people of such selfishness and poor judgement being in charge of us, I'm not. We got lucky on March 8th but we won't get lucky if we have a further lockdown next week.
Niggle though; not sure Georgia should be included.
Wonderful, desirable, but unobtainable
Migrant worker - someone who moves temporarily from poorer to richer country.
Ex pat - someone who moves permanently from richer to poorer country.
Ex pat worker - someone who moves temporarily from richer to poorer country.
Refugee - someone who moves from failed country.
Aid worker - someone who moves to failed country.
The difference is I'm always warmer than her so my body seems to burn things away while Mrs Eek's body simply doesn't.
When you start looking into things it's remarkable how little we still know about how the human body works in large numbers of areas.
To say they were less than complementary about some of the idiots who call on their services, would be something of an understatement!
They always go when the call comes in though.
I'm on about 200 but stuck there because I can't leave the parents / in-laws. One day...
Never had an incident, despite nearly 100 of those being in winter conditions. Closest to an incident was near heatstroke on the Ring of Steall one July, despite a 4am start. I prefer -13C to +25C...
I'm not advocating taxing people being athletic, so I don't know why you're aiming that at me. I said that which has a very significant externality its reasonable to charge for and that was decided decades ago. We do that with food (so obesity is covered), alcohol (also covering obesity) and tobacco already. No reason that shouldn't be extended to the unvaccinated too.
Those who exercise on hills are a distraction to the argument. Pure whataboutery.
I'm not defending any of this - obviously Stalin's policies had a lot to do with the neighbours' hostility - but I imagine the sense of loss that many Russians feel, and I do think that we let Gorbachev down with false reassurances that we wouldn't expand NATO to Russia's borders if he was relaxed about their joining the EU. Putin taking a tough line will certainly be popular, though I doubt if many really want a major war with Ukraine, and I don't think it will happen - Putin is making a show of force, but it can't possibly be in his interest to occupy an area where most people, unlike the Crimea, are with good reason viscerally hostile - it'd be Afghanistan all over again, writ large.
This permits stuff - are you thinking of the camping overnight issue esp in Lomondside? Litter, mess, crowding, etc.? That's different from breaking a leg on the high tops and having to be rescued.
So those who get fat on untaxed foods and are treated for health conditions are taking a free ride on the others. As with the unvaxxed.
And you would make a pretty bad libertarian if you proposed going through people's grocery bills to determine if they are eligible for free healthcare.
Compare
"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"
Meant to be a conundrum, but the short answer is that the smart money is probably not on Eve.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/kosovo-experts-oppose-denmark-prison-outsourcing/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=17714&pnespid=taFtBz9Karkc0PWaqym5CpWPuUqsU5UqPe_j0PZroBpmWwSa9yAYNjRm_YK6beO22aejpZG88w
I struggle to see how anyone could see it as a greater evil than the types of lockdowns or restrictions we've seen on and off for almost 2 years.
The debate should just be on the most effective way to implement such a tax.
The best approach if it became necessary is as @Ishmael_Z points out to bill those people who don't subscribe to an organisation - having a fee that is removed by joining an organisation may be enough to encourage people to both join the organisation and to spend 30 seconds getting organised before they went walking.
He thought it would have been at least explored and done a lot to defuse the more recent tensions over both of them even if ultimately the membership hadn't been taken up.
It would also have bolstered the Russian economy and strengthened its democratic elements, which as we have seen recently were very weak.
I did it in two weeks and was resupplied by my parents in Kinlochlewe. Helped that I know the Highlands fairly well so no nav problems, and could set my own pace being solo.
The scary bit is between Glenfinnan and Glen Shiel, where you have no phone signal whatsoever.
Taxing externalities doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. Its just like Joe Biden: Acceptable under the circumstances.