Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
Below I wrote that I thought Stephen Gough, the Naked Rambler, was a bit of a numpty.
The question is *why* I thought that (I still do, BTW): although it's not an easy question. Why did Gough not get much support (fnarr fnarr), when Speedo Mick has raised hundreds of thousands for charity ? Is it just that one had underpants on, whilst the other was fully nude? The fact one was raising money for charity, whilst the other was doing it for a cause?
It's not through prudery - nakedness doesn't bother me much. There's a traffic safety issue: people might be surprised to see someone naked and crash, but that's remote IMO. So why is he a numpty?
Mainly, I think it's because: *) He made it about *him*. He had a cause, but it seemed to be secondary. That might be related to: *) IMO he was not very persuasive during interviews. *) He did not know when to stop. Repeatedly insisting on being naked, and ending up in jail, makes it seem more like some form of weird mental illness than a cause. His kids suffered from his near ten yeas in jail. *) His is not what I would call a major cause. It is not exactly universal suffrage.
But neither do I think sending him to jail for ten years (in short terms) does much good for society, either.
I do wonder if a more persuasive person could have done much more with his cause.
I would wonder about his mental sanity in walking nude in the damper parts of Scotland in August becausde of the midges - did he do that? Or does he just buy a lot of repellent from Tisos?
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
Sure, Christianity's supernatural and metaphysical claims are certainly a lot more questionable, to say the least. But it's still the case that there are some particularly virulent atheists who are sceptical about Jesus' existence. Including some posters on PB, I might add.
I’m actually not that hostile to Christianity. In fact, I find Catholicism quite attractive: it’s long history, global reach, an ideology that offers a more attractive alternative to capitalist materialism - and I genuinely admire the current Pope. I attended a Xmas mass in the church off Marylebone High Street a couple of years’ ago, and enjoyed the sense of community, and the opportunity for peaceful contemplation. I thought I could even potentially start attending weekly. But then I saw that at the Church door a collection of leaflets opposing abortion, and it put me right off.
Most religions have some decent moral philosophy. Leave the hocus-pocus to one side, and there is lots to learn. Of course, it all gets corrupted by those who see religion as a route to power, authority and wealth.
One aspect of Christian teaching I found very difficult to cope with during my period of Catholic indoctrination is Original Sin. A bit rubbish for humankind, if that were to be true.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Today we’ve published interim estimates of #COVID19 positivity between 13 and 19 December 2021.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased in all four UK nations, as did the number of infections compatible with the Omicron variant http://ow.ly/OCLA50HiM6t
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
Sure, Christianity's supernatural and metaphysical claims are certainly a lot more questionable, to say the least. But it's still the case that there are some particularly virulent atheists who are sceptical about Jesus' existence. Including some posters on PB, I might add.
I’m actually not that hostile to Christianity. In fact, I find Catholicism quite attractive: it’s long history, global reach, an ideology that offers a more attractive alternative to capitalist materialism - and I genuinely admire the current Pope. I attended a Xmas mass in the church off Marylebone High Street a couple of years’ ago, and enjoyed the sense of community, and the opportunity for peaceful contemplation. I thought I could even potentially start attending weekly. But then I saw that at the Church door a collection of leaflets opposing abortion, and it put me right off.
Strict Catholics tend to be leftwing economically but socially conservative.
The Catholic vote in the UK went Labour in 2017 but Tory in 2019. It is more open to swing than the atheist or non Christian vote which was Labour in 2017 and 2019 or the Anglican and Protestant vote which was Tory in 2017 and 2019.
Similarly in the US Catholics voted for Trump in 2016 but for Biden (one of their own) in 2020. Atheists and non Christians voted for Hillary and Biden, Protestant Americans voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020
Today we’ve published interim estimates of #COVID19 positivity between 13 and 19 December 2021.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased in all four UK nations, as did the number of infections compatible with the Omicron variant http://ow.ly/OCLA50HiM6t
1 in 20 in London - or about 450,000......and 1.6 million across England....
Including, I found out this morning, a neighbour. He's looking a little rough, but otherwise okay. They were due to have a Christmas Day meal out at a restaurant with another family, so that's another booking lost.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Indeed, and in that light, it’s clear how catastrophically short of their target they were in 2017 as well as 2019.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
Dylan acoustic? Shit Dylan electric? Shit
Never every understood why everyone goes on about him.
It does put a rather large dent in one's credibility, when they claim that they are surprised that BoJo turned out to be a totally useless PM when literally from the day he ran to be leader, most of us said this would be the outcome. It is why so many left the Tory Party.
Yet who beat Corbyn, delivered Brexit and won the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher? BoJo. Which leader has the highest percentage of adults boosted in their nation in the G7? BoJo
And never forget @CorrectHorseBattery was a huge Corbyn fanbois and now champions Starmer
As for Boris I was fine with him until the Paterson debacle and I expect him to go in 2022
I remember you calling for Johnson to resign last year and then magically when his ratings improved you were back on side.
You and Philip are the biggest Johnson fanboys here, so I will wear your accusations at me with pride.
As I said to you, I've voted Tory, Lib Dem and Labour.
You're right I'm a fan of 2019 Boris. That's because I liked what 2019 Boris stood for. I opposed May and IDS and voted against May and Hague.
That doesn't make me a partisan, it makes me someone who likes or liked Boris.
You're a partisan. You mirror the Labour Party. If it's Corbyn in charge then Corbyn is great, once he's gone he was awful.
I had the self awareness to oppose Theresa May from before she became PM until she resigned because I don't like what the authoritarianism she stands for.
Can you see the difference?
You're a partisan, literally the most hyper-partisan person here.
We're just going around and around in circles, I'll agree to disagree with you on this
The tedious and constant criticisms of individual posters seems to be getting worse. A focus on issues or at least actual politicians would spark some interest for a change.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
Indeed you're a Labour Partisan.
Labour led by Corbyn? You're a fan. Labour led by Starmer? You're a fan.
Labour could be led by Liz Kendall, John McDonnell, Yvette Cooper or Boris Johnson and you'd be a fan.
When the Tories are led by a leader whose principles don't match my own, like Theresa May all of the time or late 2021 Boris, then I say so. When have you done the same?
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
Indeed you're a Labour Partisan.
Labour led by Corbyn? You're a fan. Labour led by Starmer? You're a fan.
Labour could be led by Liz Kendall, John McDonnell, Yvette Cooper or Boris Johnson and you'd be a fan.
When the Tories are led by a leader whose principles don't match my own, like Theresa May all of the time or late 2021 Boris, then I say so. When have you done the same?
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
In a local sense, yes, of course. From a national perspective, it gives the impression that Labour aren't a standalone political party, and voting for them - anywhere - is a vote for some ill-defined coalition on terms yet to be agreed with parties you may not actually like or want to be in government. Meanwhile, since the Labour party has clearly given up on winning a majority on its own accord, and on governing for the entire country, their manifesto is worthless, because they'll be ale to junk any bits of it they weren't serious about and blame their coalition partners.
That wasn't the case in 1997, when Labour won a landslide.
They didn't really try then in certain seats, they weren't seen then as not trying to win
So all you have to do is become competitive again in most of Scotland and large swathes of the rural North and West Midlands, and you can try the same trick again in the Shires and wealthy suburban London.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
Hmm. It depends what people in each party think about the unintended consequences, and how far (temporally and geographically) they look for their experiences. The PR system at Holyrood was deliberately chosen to be a degraded d'Hondt to ensure that no one party could ever gain a majority. But that was on the assumption that a Labour-LD coalition would be in permanent rule.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
It does put a rather large dent in one's credibility, when they claim that they are surprised that BoJo turned out to be a totally useless PM when literally from the day he ran to be leader, most of us said this would be the outcome. It is why so many left the Tory Party.
Yet who beat Corbyn, delivered Brexit and won the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher? BoJo. Which leader has the highest percentage of adults boosted in their nation in the G7? BoJo
And never forget @CorrectHorseBattery was a huge Corbyn fanbois and now champions Starmer
As for Boris I was fine with him until the Paterson debacle and I expect him to go in 2022
I remember you calling for Johnson to resign last year and then magically when his ratings improved you were back on side.
You and Philip are the biggest Johnson fanboys here, so I will wear your accusations at me with pride.
As I said to you, I've voted Tory, Lib Dem and Labour.
You're right I'm a fan of 2019 Boris. That's because I liked what 2019 Boris stood for. I opposed May and IDS and voted against May and Hague.
That doesn't make me a partisan, it makes me someone who likes or liked Boris.
You're a partisan. You mirror the Labour Party. If it's Corbyn in charge then Corbyn is great, once he's gone he was awful.
I had the self awareness to oppose Theresa May from before she became PM until she resigned because I don't like what the authoritarianism she stands for.
Can you see the difference?
You're a partisan, literally the most hyper-partisan person here.
We're just going around and around in circles, I'll agree to disagree with you on this
The tedious and constant criticisms of individual posters seems to be getting worse. A focus on issues or at least actual politicians would spark some interest for a change.
Felix your entire posting history is full of you having a go at posters, simmer down
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
Indeed you're a Labour Partisan.
Labour led by Corbyn? You're a fan. Labour led by Starmer? You're a fan.
Labour could be led by Liz Kendall, John McDonnell, Yvette Cooper or Boris Johnson and you'd be a fan.
When the Tories are led by a leader whose principles don't match my own, like Theresa May all of the time or late 2021 Boris, then I say so. When have you done the same?
I voted Tory and Lib Dem
When? Which General Elections? And did you say so on this site at the time?
Saying you did is easier said than done, I'm not questioning your integrity but I have a track record here, I wrote thousands of posts on this site opposing Theresa May's Premiership and saying she was unsuitable from before she became PM, through her horrendous deal I opposed at all three Meaningful Votes (unlike Boris). I wrote so here at the time so my record is there for all to see.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
In a local sense, yes, of course. From a national perspective, it gives the impression that Labour aren't a standalone political party, and voting for them - anywhere - is a vote for some ill-defined coalition on terms yet to be agreed with parties you may not actually like or want to be in government. Meanwhile, since the Labour party has clearly given up on winning a majority on its own accord, and on governing for the entire country, their manifesto is worthless, because they'll be ale to junk any bits of it they weren't serious about and blame their coalition partners.
That wasn't the case in 1997, when Labour won a landslide.
They didn't really try then in certain seats, they weren't seen then as not trying to win
So all you have to do is become competitive again in most of Scotland and large swathes of the rural North and West Midlands, and you can try the same trick again in the Shires and wealthy suburban London.
Well on the current polls, Labour would not regain any of Scotland but could win a wafer thin majority. I actually think a Labour Government of some kind outside of Scotland, would actually bring more Scottish seats back if they are successful.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
Sure, Christianity's supernatural and metaphysical claims are certainly a lot more questionable, to say the least. But it's still the case that there are some particularly virulent atheists who are sceptical about Jesus' existence. Including some posters on PB, I might add.
I’m actually not that hostile to Christianity. In fact, I find Catholicism quite attractive: it’s long history, global reach, an ideology that offers a more attractive alternative to capitalist materialism - and I genuinely admire the current Pope. I attended a Xmas mass in the church off Marylebone High Street a couple of years’ ago, and enjoyed the sense of community, and the opportunity for peaceful contemplation. I thought I could even potentially start attending weekly. But then I saw that at the Church door a collection of leaflets opposing abortion, and it put me right off.
Most religions have some decent moral philosophy. Leave the hocus-pocus to one side, and there is lots to learn. Of course, it all gets corrupted by those who see religion as a route to power, authority and wealth.
One aspect of Christian teaching I found very difficult to cope with during my period of Catholic indoctrination is Original Sin. A bit rubbish for humankind, if that were to be true.
Not bothered myself with the notion of Original Sin, or maybe it's the Calvinist heritage of my Scots forebears including my kirk elder granddad. It's not so far off the Selfish Gene in its perception that we have to fight the old Adam in all of us (with or without divine grace as required). What I find much more disturbing is predestination.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
Indeed you're a Labour Partisan.
Labour led by Corbyn? You're a fan. Labour led by Starmer? You're a fan.
Labour could be led by Liz Kendall, John McDonnell, Yvette Cooper or Boris Johnson and you'd be a fan.
When the Tories are led by a leader whose principles don't match my own, like Theresa May all of the time or late 2021 Boris, then I say so. When have you done the same?
I voted Tory and Lib Dem
When? Which General Elections? And did you say so on this site at the time?
Saying you did is easier said than done, I'm not questioning your integrity but I have a track record here, I wrote thousands of posts on this site opposing Theresa May's Premiership and saying she was unsuitable from before she became PM, through her horrendous deal I opposed at all three Meaningful Votes (unlike Boris). I wrote so here at the time so my record is there for all to see.
You and somebody else implied I was a liar above.
I wasn't a member here at the time - 2005 I voted Lib Dem, 2010 I voted Tory
It does put a rather large dent in one's credibility, when they claim that they are surprised that BoJo turned out to be a totally useless PM when literally from the day he ran to be leader, most of us said this would be the outcome. It is why so many left the Tory Party.
Yet who beat Corbyn, delivered Brexit and won the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher? BoJo. Which leader has the highest percentage of adults boosted in their nation in the G7? BoJo
And never forget @CorrectHorseBattery was a huge Corbyn fanbois and now champions Starmer
As for Boris I was fine with him until the Paterson debacle and I expect him to go in 2022
I remember you calling for Johnson to resign last year and then magically when his ratings improved you were back on side.
You and Philip are the biggest Johnson fanboys here, so I will wear your accusations at me with pride.
As I said to you, I've voted Tory, Lib Dem and Labour.
You're right I'm a fan of 2019 Boris. That's because I liked what 2019 Boris stood for. I opposed May and IDS and voted against May and Hague.
That doesn't make me a partisan, it makes me someone who likes or liked Boris.
You're a partisan. You mirror the Labour Party. If it's Corbyn in charge then Corbyn is great, once he's gone he was awful.
I had the self awareness to oppose Theresa May from before she became PM until she resigned because I don't like what the authoritarianism she stands for.
Can you see the difference?
You're a partisan, literally the most hyper-partisan person here.
We're just going around and around in circles, I'll agree to disagree with you on this
The tedious and constant criticisms of individual posters seems to be getting worse. A focus on issues or at least actual politicians would spark some interest for a change.
Felix your entire posting history is full of you having a go at posters, simmer down
Yawn - nearly 14k posts - care to do the maths on that?
Today we’ve published interim estimates of #COVID19 positivity between 13 and 19 December 2021.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased in all four UK nations, as did the number of infections compatible with the Omicron variant http://ow.ly/OCLA50HiM6t
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Below I wrote that I thought Stephen Gough, the Naked Rambler, was a bit of a numpty.
The question is *why* I thought that (I still do, BTW): although it's not an easy question. Why did Gough not get much support (fnarr fnarr), when Speedo Mick has raised hundreds of thousands for charity ? Is it just that one had underpants on, whilst the other was fully nude? The fact one was raising money for charity, whilst the other was doing it for a cause?
It's not through prudery - nakedness doesn't bother me much. There's a traffic safety issue: people might be surprised to see someone naked and crash, but that's remote IMO. So why is he a numpty?
Mainly, I think it's because: *) He made it about *him*. He had a cause, but it seemed to be secondary. That might be related to: *) IMO he was not very persuasive during interviews. *) He did not know when to stop. Repeatedly insisting on being naked, and ending up in jail, makes it seem more like some form of weird mental illness than a cause. His kids suffered from his near ten yeas in jail. *) His is not what I would call a major cause. It is not exactly universal suffrage.
But neither do I think sending him to jail for ten years (in short terms) does much good for society, either.
I do wonder if a more persuasive person could have done much more with his cause.
I would wonder about his mental sanity in walking nude in the damper parts of Scotland in August becausde of the midges - did he do that? Or does he just buy a lot of repellent from Tisos?
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Today we’ve published interim estimates of #COVID19 positivity between 13 and 19 December 2021.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased in all four UK nations, as did the number of infections compatible with the Omicron variant http://ow.ly/OCLA50HiM6t
1 in 20 in London - or about 450,000......and 1.6 million across England....
So much for that PER DAY, according to the HSA model.
Assuming those numbers are right, we are either in for a disaster when the cases reach hospitalisation, or alternatively, looking at how few are actually in hospital right now (accepting lags), were going to be fine. I’m pretty sure its the latter. I think there has been enough time by now to see.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
Indeed you're a Labour Partisan.
Labour led by Corbyn? You're a fan. Labour led by Starmer? You're a fan.
Labour could be led by Liz Kendall, John McDonnell, Yvette Cooper or Boris Johnson and you'd be a fan.
When the Tories are led by a leader whose principles don't match my own, like Theresa May all of the time or late 2021 Boris, then I say so. When have you done the same?
I voted Tory and Lib Dem
When? Which General Elections? And did you say so on this site at the time?
Saying you did is easier said than done, I'm not questioning your integrity but I have a track record here, I wrote thousands of posts on this site opposing Theresa May's Premiership and saying she was unsuitable from before she became PM, through her horrendous deal I opposed at all three Meaningful Votes (unlike Boris). I wrote so here at the time so my record is there for all to see.
I think the accusation is that you're a party partisan, rather than blindly following the line of the leader du jour - so opposing May's Deal proves nothing, given that Meaningful numbers of Tory MPs also opposed that (else it would've passed).
I think you have to find examples where you either voted for another party, or opposed policy on a significant issue where the party was all-but united.
Also, you don't have much of a track record on this site at all, Bartholomew. You can't have that one both ways.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
Sure, Christianity's supernatural and metaphysical claims are certainly a lot more questionable, to say the least. But it's still the case that there are some particularly virulent atheists who are sceptical about Jesus' existence. Including some posters on PB, I might add.
I’m actually not that hostile to Christianity. In fact, I find Catholicism quite attractive: it’s long history, global reach, an ideology that offers a more attractive alternative to capitalist materialism - and I genuinely admire the current Pope. I attended a Xmas mass in the church off Marylebone High Street a couple of years’ ago, and enjoyed the sense of community, and the opportunity for peaceful contemplation. I thought I could even potentially start attending weekly. But then I saw that at the Church door a collection of leaflets opposing abortion, and it put me right off.
Strict Catholics tend to be leftwing economically but socially conservative.
The Catholic vote in the UK went Labour in 2017 but Tory in 2019. It is more open to swing than the atheist or non Christian vote which was Labour in 2017 and 2019 or the Anglican and Protestant vote which was Tory in 2017 and 2019.
Similarly in the US Catholics voted for Trump in 2016 but for Biden (one of their own) in 2020. Atheists and non Christians voted for Hillary and Biden, Protestant Americans voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020
Rees Mogg isn't noted for wanting the utilities brought into public ownership.
Below I wrote that I thought Stephen Gough, the Naked Rambler, was a bit of a numpty.
The question is *why* I thought that (I still do, BTW): although it's not an easy question. Why did Gough not get much support (fnarr fnarr), when Speedo Mick has raised hundreds of thousands for charity ? Is it just that one had underpants on, whilst the other was fully nude? The fact one was raising money for charity, whilst the other was doing it for a cause?
It's not through prudery - nakedness doesn't bother me much. There's a traffic safety issue: people might be surprised to see someone naked and crash, but that's remote IMO. So why is he a numpty?
Mainly, I think it's because: *) He made it about *him*. He had a cause, but it seemed to be secondary. That might be related to: *) IMO he was not very persuasive during interviews. *) He did not know when to stop. Repeatedly insisting on being naked, and ending up in jail, makes it seem more like some form of weird mental illness than a cause. His kids suffered from his near ten yeas in jail. *) His is not what I would call a major cause. It is not exactly universal suffrage.
But neither do I think sending him to jail for ten years (in short terms) does much good for society, either.
I do wonder if a more persuasive person could have done much more with his cause.
I would wonder about his mental sanity in walking nude in the damper parts of Scotland in August becausde of the midges - did he do that? Or does he just buy a lot of repellent from Tisos?
I hope never to get near enough to him to ask.
Besides, Real Men (TM) use Avon Skin So Soft...
Thanks! It's the issue that comes to mind when I encounter him in the papers. And yes, ASSS is the stuff I had in mind - I've seen it on sale in Tisos, at least in the past.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
To me a pint of wine or champagne seems odd and vulgar. Wine is not an English product so no need to rejoice at having it in "pints" . I am no metric fanatic and find furlongs , stones and feet perfectly find and dandy but happy to leave wine to metric measurements imho
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
Sure, Christianity's supernatural and metaphysical claims are certainly a lot more questionable, to say the least. But it's still the case that there are some particularly virulent atheists who are sceptical about Jesus' existence. Including some posters on PB, I might add.
I’m actually not that hostile to Christianity. In fact, I find Catholicism quite attractive: it’s long history, global reach, an ideology that offers a more attractive alternative to capitalist materialism - and I genuinely admire the current Pope. I attended a Xmas mass in the church off Marylebone High Street a couple of years’ ago, and enjoyed the sense of community, and the opportunity for peaceful contemplation. I thought I could even potentially start attending weekly. But then I saw that at the Church door a collection of leaflets opposing abortion, and it put me right off.
Strict Catholics tend to be leftwing economically but socially conservative.
The Catholic vote in the UK went Labour in 2017 but Tory in 2019. It is more open to swing than the atheist or non Christian vote which was Labour in 2017 and 2019 or the Anglican and Protestant vote which was Tory in 2017 and 2019.
Similarly in the US Catholics voted for Trump in 2016 but for Biden (one of their own) in 2020. Atheists and non Christians voted for Hillary and Biden, Protestant Americans voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020
Rees Mogg isn't noted for wanting the utilities brought into public ownership.
Tend to, not all.
There are even some evangelical Protestant Labour supporters
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
Dylan acoustic? Shit Dylan electric? Shit
Never every understood why everyone goes on about him.
Oh dear - worst ever post from you by quite some distance.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Almost like they’d heard about incidental Covid in hospitals and tried to be clever. But weren’t clever enough... Their number is wrong, but the number of incedentals is increasing. Omicron is going to be a bugger to stop nosocomial infections.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Today we’ve published interim estimates of #COVID19 positivity between 13 and 19 December 2021.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased in all four UK nations, as did the number of infections compatible with the Omicron variant http://ow.ly/OCLA50HiM6t
1 in 20 in London - or about 450,000......and 1.6 million across England....
Including, I found out this morning, a neighbour. He's looking a little rough, but otherwise okay. They were due to have a Christmas Day meal out at a restaurant with another family, so that's another booking lost.
I've now heard of two families' christmases banjaxed - on opposite sides of the planet - Sydney and Newcastle upon Tyne because twenty-something daughters tested positive. There's a lot of it about....
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
Wine is not an English product
What did the Romans ever do for us?
Vines have been grown in England since Roman times for winemaking. The Doomsday book refers to over 42 vineyards in Southern England at the end of the 11th Century and there are now more than 500 vineyards in England and Wales producing still and sparkling wines.
Use what you know to make a bit of money, then search out the young Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates - and be one of their first backers.....
Just because those guys are billionaires in the current drug induced fever dream doesn't mean they will be when he wakes up back on the original timeline...
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Use what you know to make a bit of money, then search out the young Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates - and be one of their first backers.....
Just because those guys are billionaires in the current drug induced fever dream doesn't mean they will be when he wakes up back on the original timeline...
Since Bitcoin is just game theory + austrian economics, the smart thing to do would be to invest in whatever the original timeline's first cryptocurrency turns out to be, then wait a decade...
Since Bitcoin is just game theory + austrian economics, the smart thing to do would be to invest in whatever the original timeline's first cryptocurrency turns out to be, then wait a decade...
German import prices rose by 3.0% in November and by 24.7% on a year ago. (Analysts had expected 1.1% and 22.3%.)
A lot of younger people won’t even remember inflation. They are about to learn a fundamental economic lesson the hard way.
Just as well the UK government hasn’t borrowed too much.
Oh!
Just as well the UK government is keeping prices down by retaining membership of the biggest single market on the planet.
Oh!
Just as well households haven’t over-borrowed and gambled money they don’t have on the stock markets. The effect of inflation on equities though is less clear Oh!
The list of extremely hard lessons about to be learned is very long.
I agree that no one under 50 remembers real inflation and the problems that it brings. The effect on equities is less clear, so I am remaining invested. It was a major bear market in the Seventies but I think it more likely to reach inflation figures of the Eighties.
Indeed, during inflation, doesn't money run to harder, higher quality assets and tangibles? I seem to remember the fine art market going haywire during the hyperinflation and 17% mortgage rates days. Perhaps a time to rebalance investment portfolios for those fortunate to have them, rather than withdraw. Out of cash and vaporware, and into grannie stocks, gold etc...
But then, I am not an investment professional, so better get advice from someone who knows.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
Dylan acoustic? Shit Dylan electric? Shit
Never every understood why everyone goes on about him.
To my ears, he sounds like a singing chainsaw....
Can't sing; can't play; thought by some to be quite good at the old writing game.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
To me a pint of wine or champagne seems odd and vulgar. Wine is not an English product so no need to rejoice at having it in "pints" . I am no metric fanatic and find furlongs , stones and feet perfectly find and dandy but happy to leave wine to metric measurements imho
Yep, wine comes in bottles sized by metric measures. So it's easier to understand in metric measures. 454g cans clearly are not sized for metric measures. I'd prefer to call that a pound.
German import prices rose by 3.0% in November and by 24.7% on a year ago. (Analysts had expected 1.1% and 22.3%.)
A lot of younger people won’t even remember inflation. They are about to learn a fundamental economic lesson the hard way.
Just as well the UK government hasn’t borrowed too much.
Oh!
Just as well the UK government is keeping prices down by retaining membership of the biggest single market on the planet.
Oh!
Just as well households haven’t over-borrowed and gambled money they don’t have on the stock markets. The effect of inflation on equities though is less clear Oh!
The list of extremely hard lessons about to be learned is very long.
I agree that no one under 50 remembers real inflation and the problems that it brings. The effect on equities is less clear, so I am remaining invested. It was a major bear market in the Seventies but I think it more likely to reach inflation figures of the Eighties.
Indeed, during inflation, doesn't money run to harder, higher quality assets and tangibles? I seem to remember the fine art market going haywire during the hyperinflation and 17% mortgage rates days. Perhaps a time to rebalance investment portfolios for those fortunate to have them, rather than withdraw. Out of cash and vaporware, and into grannie stocks, gold etc...
But then, I am not an investment professional, so better get advice from someone who knows.
The investment professionals best idea is to charge you 1-2% per year knowing that sounds quite small. But in a world of 3-4% real annual returns it actually means they are taking 25-66% of your actual real returns each year for doing very little and risking nothing. Doesn't sound quite so small put that way.
German import prices rose by 3.0% in November and by 24.7% on a year ago. (Analysts had expected 1.1% and 22.3%.)
A lot of younger people won’t even remember inflation. They are about to learn a fundamental economic lesson the hard way.
Just as well the UK government hasn’t borrowed too much.
Oh!
Just as well the UK government is keeping prices down by retaining membership of the biggest single market on the planet.
Oh!
Just as well households haven’t over-borrowed and gambled money they don’t have on the stock markets. The effect of inflation on equities though is less clear Oh!
The list of extremely hard lessons about to be learned is very long.
I agree that no one under 50 remembers real inflation and the problems that it brings. The effect on equities is less clear, so I am remaining invested. It was a major bear market in the Seventies but I think it more likely to reach inflation figures of the Eighties.
Indeed, during inflation, doesn't money run to harder, higher quality assets and tangibles? I seem to remember the fine art market going haywire during the hyperinflation and 17% mortgage rates days. Perhaps a time to rebalance investment portfolios for those fortunate to have them, rather than withdraw. Out of cash and vaporware, and into grannie stocks, gold etc...
But then, I am not an investment professional, so better get advice from someone who knows.
The investment professionals best idea is to charge you 1-2% per year knowing that sounds quite small. But in a world of 3-4% real annual returns it actually means they are taking 25-66% of your actual real returns each year for doing very little and risking nothing. Doesn't sound quite so small put that way.
That speaks to seeking an ethical investment advisor, rather than a lack of investment advice.
I think most of us here reverence his Bobness as the GOAT. Given that, there’s not really any point in even attempting to engage those suggesting otherwise.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
I'm not a Corbynite.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
Indeed you're a Labour Partisan.
Labour led by Corbyn? You're a fan. Labour led by Starmer? You're a fan.
Labour could be led by Liz Kendall, John McDonnell, Yvette Cooper or Boris Johnson and you'd be a fan.
When the Tories are led by a leader whose principles don't match my own, like Theresa May all of the time or late 2021 Boris, then I say so. When have you done the same?
I voted Tory and Lib Dem
When? Which General Elections? And did you say so on this site at the time?
Saying you did is easier said than done, I'm not questioning your integrity but I have a track record here, I wrote thousands of posts on this site opposing Theresa May's Premiership and saying she was unsuitable from before she became PM, through her horrendous deal I opposed at all three Meaningful Votes (unlike Boris). I wrote so here at the time so my record is there for all to see.
I think the accusation is that you're a party partisan, rather than blindly following the line of the leader du jour - so opposing May's Deal proves nothing, given that Meaningful numbers of Tory MPs also opposed that (else it would've passed).
I think you have to find examples where you either voted for another party, or opposed policy on a significant issue where the party was all-but united.
Also, you don't have much of a track record on this site at all, Bartholomew. You can't have that one both ways.
Unlike Leon claiming that SeanT is a god amongst men with a humongous penis, but that it's not him, I'm not pretending to be a new user, I just don't want to be doxxed so have stopped using my real name. I make no secret who I am I just want some privacy IRL.
I opposed May before her deal was causing issues and quit the party before then. I was disgusted at her xenophobia and authoritarianism even more than her deal.
I had the misfortune to sit in the audience through her 2015 Conference Speech in real life which was the nastiest speech I have ever heard in real life.
But if you want something different and from left field I called for a u turn on the exams fiasco last year over a week before it happened and before even Starmer was speaking on it, while the party was united in saying there were no issues.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
Dylan acoustic? Shit Dylan electric? Shit
Never every understood why everyone goes on about him.
To my ears, he sounds like a singing chainsaw....
Can't sing; can't play; thought by some to be quite good at the old writing game.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
To me a pint of wine or champagne seems odd and vulgar. Wine is not an English product so no need to rejoice at having it in "pints" . I am no metric fanatic and find furlongs , stones and feet perfectly find and dandy but happy to leave wine to metric measurements imho
Yep, wine comes in bottles sized by metric measures. So it's easier to understand in metric measures. 454g cans clearly are not sized for metric measures. I'd prefer to call that a pound.
A wine bottle is three quarters of a litre, which is hardly sensible in any metric.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
An agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. Arithmetic is what matters.
If following the next election the Tories have 310 seats and the LDs 20 it'll be plausible enough for the Tories to end up continuing as a minority government even if Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN totals more seats than Tories alone.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
Dylan acoustic? Shit Dylan electric? Shit
Never every understood why everyone goes on about him.
To my ears, he sounds like a singing chainsaw....
Can't sing; can't play; thought by some to be quite good at the old writing game.
Never was a huge Dylan fan. But artistry and virtuosity are very different things. Lou Reed couldn't sing or play either. But he produced wonderful art.
Often, on shows like "X has Talent" or "The Voice", I think of my favorite artists and wonder if they'd make it through auditions. Many would not.
Anyway, it’s Christmas and it starts about now chez me. Usual deal, have a bath, a shave, clean togs, then it’s sherry & nibbles followed by an afternoon of festive TV kicking off with The Snowman. Bowie’s intro, the little boy’s creation coming alive, so many great moments in there, not just the bit that everyone (rightly) raves about where they hold hands and shoot up into the skies as Walking In the Air cranks up. You can’t beat it.
Evening it’s always a film and it will be again except this year we’re experimenting rather than sticking to an old faithful. A risk, I know, but you have to do that sometimes otherwise nothing ever changes. Whatever, the decision is made, we’re going to watch a movie I’ve never seen before. It’s a Bruce Willis ‘action hero’ yarn, would you believe, not my usual sort of thing at all but I’m happy to give it a whirl.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
An agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. Arithmetic is what matters.
If following the next election the Tories have 310 seats and the LDs 20 it'll be plausible enough for the Tories to end up continuing as a minority government even if Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN totals more seats than Tories alone.
A period of Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN coalition would be fun to watch.
Not saying it would be an explosive mix. Just that it would make the Hindenburg look like a slow burn....
Would kill Coalition politics for decades and decades.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
To me a pint of wine or champagne seems odd and vulgar. Wine is not an English product so no need to rejoice at having it in "pints" . I am no metric fanatic and find furlongs , stones and feet perfectly find and dandy but happy to leave wine to metric measurements imho
Yep, wine comes in bottles sized by metric measures. So it's easier to understand in metric measures. 454g cans clearly are not sized for metric measures. I'd prefer to call that a pound.
A wine bottle is three quarters of a litre, which is hardly sensible in any metric.
Indeed, an odd choice. I like these theories:
"There are many theories to explain this peculiar size. - One of these goes back to a very practical issue dated back to the 18° century, when they discovered the importance to store the wine in glass bottles. At the time, the glass bottles were made by glass blowers. Their pulmonary strenght was obviously limited and permitted to create only bottles up to 650-750 ml size. So they decided to use the biggest one between those, the 750 ml bottle. - According to another theory 750 ml is the exact quantity of wine per 6 serving glasses (125ml each) used in “osteria”. - Others say that the 750 ml standard was a metric adaptation of the fifth (fifth of a gallon)
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
No. In the Liberal Democrats any such decision would have to be approved by the membership, with whatever other party. Some of our PB posters think the Lib Dems work the same as the Tories and Labour - just a matter of follow-my-leader. They are wrong.
Good people of PB, looking to take a straw poll. Have panto tickets booked for 29th Dec (England). How likely do you think restrictions *that would prevent that event taking place* being imposed? Asking as have the option to buy tickets for Boxing Day instead, though that risks ending up wiht two pairs of tickets if everything goes ahead
Anyway, it’s Christmas and it starts about now chez me. Usual deal, have a bath, a shave, clean togs, then it’s sherry & nibbles followed by an afternoon of festive TV kicking off with The Snowman. Bowie’s intro, the little boy’s creation coming alive, so many great moments in there, not just the bit that everyone (rightly) raves about where they hold hands and shoot up into the skies as Walking In the Air cranks up. You can’t beat it.
Evening it’s always a film and it will be again except this year we’re experimenting rather than sticking to an old faithful. A risk, I know, but you have to do that sometimes otherwise nothing ever changes. Whatever, the decision is made, we’re going to watch a movie I’ve never seen before. It’s a Bruce Willis ‘action hero’ yarn, would you believe, not my usual sort of thing at all but I’m happy to give it a whirl.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
The loaves and fishes stuff is often misunderstood. What seems to have happened is that the crowd had come to listen to Jesus some distance from the town. When it came to be time to eat everyone was selfishly holding onto their own. Jesus shamed them by making an offer to share the little he had and when everyone copied his example not only was there enough to feed everyone but there was even more left over than had originally been shared.
It doesn't involve magic, it involves bringing out the best in human nature. A true miracle and a wonderful parable, even for the non religious like me. Happy Christmas.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
The loaves and fishes stuff is often misunderstood. What seems to have happened is that the crowd had come to listen to Jesus some distance from the town. When it came to be time to eat everyone was selfishly holding onto their own. Jesus shamed them by making an offer to share the little he had and when everyone copied their example not only was there enough to feed anyone but there was even more left over than had originally been shared.
It doesn't involve magic, it involves bringing out the best in human nature. A true miracle and a wonderful parable, even for the non religious like me. Happy Christmas.
And now we have all your can eat / every style of food from around the globe buffet restaurants.... ;-)
< No. In the Liberal Democrats any such decision would have to be approved by the membership, with whatever other party. Some of our PB posters think the Lib Dems work the same as the Tories and Labour - just a matter of follow-my-leader. They are wrong.
Indeed - there's always a strong sense the Conservatives and Labour are two cheeks of the same arse (to use an apposite expression).
The experience of 2010-15 has put a lot of the party off any kind of arrangement, formal or otherwise. We could simply look at each piece of legislation and take a view - support what we like, oppose what we don't.
Of course, the "none of us wants the Tories back" argument will have a lot of force throughout the parties of the new Government so there will be a necessity for goodwill and compromise on all sides.
Just got back after a morning out and about. First the important news about the last local by-election before Christmas. As I expected the former Conservative councillor standing as an Independant won with the Greens taking second place above the official Conservative. Secondly on the issue of being young again; I have just received some bumf in the post saying I can 'look and feel 30+ years younger' if I take Red Diamond Goji. Should I go for it?
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
To me a pint of wine or champagne seems odd and vulgar. Wine is not an English product so no need to rejoice at having it in "pints" . I am no metric fanatic and find furlongs , stones and feet perfectly find and dandy but happy to leave wine to metric measurements imho
Yep, wine comes in bottles sized by metric measures. So it's easier to understand in metric measures. 454g cans clearly are not sized for metric measures. I'd prefer to call that a pound.
A wine bottle is three quarters of a litre, which is hardly sensible in any metric.
Indeed, an odd choice. I like these theories:
"There are many theories to explain this peculiar size. - One of these goes back to a very practical issue dated back to the 18° century, when they discovered the importance to store the wine in glass bottles. At the time, the glass bottles were made by glass blowers. Their pulmonary strenght was obviously limited and permitted to create only bottles up to 650-750 ml size. So they decided to use the biggest one between those, the 750 ml bottle. - According to another theory 750 ml is the exact quantity of wine per 6 serving glasses (125ml each) used in “osteria”. - Others say that the 750 ml standard was a metric adaptation of the fifth (fifth of a gallon)
A sixth of an imperial gallon, of course. A pint and a third.
Good people of PB, looking to take a straw poll. Have panto tickets booked for 29th Dec (England). How likely do you think restrictions *that would prevent that event taking place* being imposed? Asking as have the option to buy tickets for Boxing Day instead, though that risks ending up wiht two pairs of tickets if everything goes ahead
New restrictions need parliament recalled. If introduced by the 29th it would mean parliament sitting on a bank holiday. If the Tory backbenchers don't like the PM now, imagine how people used to 20 odd weeks off per year will react to their Xmas break being interrupted to vote on something they hope doesn't need to happen.
The Panto is pretty safe*. And dont listen to those who shout "Oh no it isnt".
* More likely to be cancelled because actors have covid than restrictions.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
Don't you mean atheist/anti-theist fundies? Be a bit strange if religious fundamentalists were peddling literature which questioned the existence of Jesus. But yeah, the majority of secular scholars - let alone actual Christian scholars - accept there was a historical Jesus, and those who don't are basically considered as reputable on the matter as Piers Corbyn is on Covid and Climatology.
Not really the question though is it. I’m happy to acknowledge his actual historical existence, but I’m a bit sceptical about all the loaves and fishes stuff - and I have to say I don’t really buy the idea that he was the son of God.
The loaves and fishes stuff is often misunderstood. What seems to have happened is that the crowd had come to listen to Jesus some distance from the town. When it came to be time to eat everyone was selfishly holding onto their own. Jesus shamed them by making an offer to share the little he had and when everyone copied their example not only was there enough to feed anyone but there was even more left over than had originally been shared.
It doesn't involve magic, it involves bringing out the best in human nature. A true miracle and a wonderful parable, even for the non religious like me. Happy Christmas.
And now we have all your can eat / every style of food from around the globe buffet restaurants.... ;-)
When my parents were newly married and I was a small baby they worked out how much they were going to spend on Christmas dinner and gave it to charity for those starving in Africa instead. They were dirt poor at the time and this was a significant sacrifice for them. When their neighbours and friends found out what they had done they were invited to share what they had. Some years later my dad told this story in a Sunday School class and explained that this is what the parable of the loaves and the fishes was about. I have never forgotten it.
Today we’ve published interim estimates of #COVID19 positivity between 13 and 19 December 2021.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased in all four UK nations, as did the number of infections compatible with the Omicron variant http://ow.ly/OCLA50HiM6t
1 in 20 in London - or about 450,000......and 1.6 million across England....
Including, I found out this morning, a neighbour. He's looking a little rough, but otherwise okay. They were due to have a Christmas Day meal out at a restaurant with another family, so that's another booking lost.
I've now heard of two families' christmases banjaxed - on opposite sides of the planet - Sydney and Newcastle upon Tyne because twenty-something daughters tested positive. There's a lot of it about....
The common denominator is twenty-something daughters. There’s a lot of them about as well. They’re not known for isolating or socially distancing either!
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
An agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. Arithmetic is what matters.
If following the next election the Tories have 310 seats and the LDs 20 it'll be plausible enough for the Tories to end up continuing as a minority government even if Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN totals more seats than Tories alone.
Watching the Tory Party governing with 310 seats would be a laugh and a half that's for sure.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
All champagne producers are French.
Indeed - but not all champagnes are as good as lots of other sparkling wines everywhere else.
IIRC the Pol Roger pints idea was to use the Churchill branding and aim at the American market (among others)
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Prsesumably would have lead to British tourists being visibly disappointed when a meagre US 'pint' of champagne turns up.
To me a pint of wine or champagne seems odd and vulgar. Wine is not an English product so no need to rejoice at having it in "pints" . I am no metric fanatic and find furlongs , stones and feet perfectly find and dandy but happy to leave wine to metric measurements imho
Yep, wine comes in bottles sized by metric measures. So it's easier to understand in metric measures. 454g cans clearly are not sized for metric measures. I'd prefer to call that a pound.
A wine bottle is three quarters of a litre, which is hardly sensible in any metric.
Indeed, an odd choice. I like these theories:
"There are many theories to explain this peculiar size. - One of these goes back to a very practical issue dated back to the 18° century, when they discovered the importance to store the wine in glass bottles. At the time, the glass bottles were made by glass blowers. Their pulmonary strenght was obviously limited and permitted to create only bottles up to 650-750 ml size. So they decided to use the biggest one between those, the 750 ml bottle. - According to another theory 750 ml is the exact quantity of wine per 6 serving glasses (125ml each) used in “osteria”. - Others say that the 750 ml standard was a metric adaptation of the fifth (fifth of a gallon)
A sixth of an imperial gallon, of course. A pint and a third.
Actually I recall the original UK "bottle" size was 26 2/3 fl oz. 75cl = 26.4 fl oz which is only a 1% difference, so probably within tolerance for weights & measures.
Anyway, it’s Christmas and it starts about now chez me. Usual deal, have a bath, a shave, clean togs, then it’s sherry & nibbles followed by an afternoon of festive TV kicking off with The Snowman. Bowie’s intro, the little boy’s creation coming alive, so many great moments in there, not just the bit that everyone (rightly) raves about where they hold hands and shoot up into the skies as Walking In the Air cranks up. You can’t beat it.
Evening it’s always a film and it will be again except this year we’re experimenting rather than sticking to an old faithful. A risk, I know, but you have to do that sometimes otherwise nothing ever changes. Whatever, the decision is made, we’re going to watch a movie I’ve never seen before. It’s a Bruce Willis ‘action hero’ yarn, would you believe, not my usual sort of thing at all but I’m happy to give it a whirl.
Wishing PB and all PBers a Merry Christmas.
Surely you should be drinking Irn Bru whilst watching The Snowman, not sherry.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
An agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. Arithmetic is what matters.
If following the next election the Tories have 310 seats and the LDs 20 it'll be plausible enough for the Tories to end up continuing as a minority government even if Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN totals more seats than Tories alone.
Watching the Tory Party governing with 310 seats would be a laugh and a half that's for sure.
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
An agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. Arithmetic is what matters.
If following the next election the Tories have 310 seats and the LDs 20 it'll be plausible enough for the Tories to end up continuing as a minority government even if Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN totals more seats than Tories alone.
Watching the Tory Party governing with 310 seats would be a laugh and a half that's for sure.
Good people of PB, looking to take a straw poll. Have panto tickets booked for 29th Dec (England). How likely do you think restrictions *that would prevent that event taking place* being imposed? Asking as have the option to buy tickets for Boxing Day instead, though that risks ending up wiht two pairs of tickets if everything goes ahead
Johnson nor looking for further restrictions so Johnson "is behind you " on this
Keir Starmer suggests Labour will hold back in seats where the Liberal Democrats are best placed to defeat Tory MPs at the next election
This intvw with @ayeshahazarika is the furthest he's gone to suggest an informal pact with other opposition parties
This would clearly be a sensible move - but let's see if this actually goes ahead as we've heard this before
Capitulation
Common sense - if Farage had stood down in the last election Boris would have had a 120 seat majority rather than 80.
There are a whole set of seats where it makes sense for Labour to stand down and use their campaigners in a neighbouring seat. For instance let the Lib Dems have Chesham, Beaconsfield and St Albans while labour focus on Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Watford and Uxbridge.
It is utterly pointless from a Labour POV, putting any money into Guildford and Winchester.
If you are a Corbynite only a Labour majority will do. After the LDs went into government with the Tories in 2010 for them a vote for the LDs rather than Labour is just a vote for Tory lite
Horseshit. By your own definition you are not a Tory anyway having voted for ANOTHER PARTY. So you can't even harrumph about your current party any more never mind your previous party or any others.
What point are you poorly attempting to make here?
My original one, for Corbynites only a Labour majority will do.
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
After the 2010 to 2015 coalition, you'd hope Keir Starmer has an actual agreement with the LibDems and is not simply trusting his own political instincts. For one thing, if the LibDems do well at the next election, will the new MPs be able to outvote Ed Davey on whether to cuddle up with the red blanket or the blue?
An agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. Arithmetic is what matters.
If following the next election the Tories have 310 seats and the LDs 20 it'll be plausible enough for the Tories to end up continuing as a minority government even if Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN totals more seats than Tories alone.
A period of Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN coalition would be fun to watch.
Not saying it would be an explosive mix. Just that it would make the Hindenburg look like a slow burn....
Would kill Coalition politics for decades and decades.
Not saying your wrong but do I detect fear in the keystrokes?
Comments
One aspect of Christian teaching I found very difficult to cope with during my period of Catholic indoctrination is Original Sin. A bit rubbish for humankind, if that were to be true.
To be honest, if a Labour/LD C&S gets PR implemented them I'm all for it. And it would ensure any silly sausages in the SCG left over were rendered even more irrelevant.
Lib Dems aren't Tory lite
The Catholic vote in the UK went Labour in 2017 but Tory in 2019. It is more open to swing than the atheist or non Christian vote which was Labour in 2017 and 2019 or the Anglican and Protestant vote which was Tory in 2017 and 2019.
Similarly in the US Catholics voted for Trump in 2016 but for Biden (one of their own) in 2020. Atheists and non Christians voted for Hillary and Biden, Protestant Americans voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020
Labour led by Corbyn? You're a fan.
Labour led by Starmer? You're a fan.
Labour could be led by Liz Kendall, John McDonnell, Yvette Cooper or Boris Johnson and you'd be a fan.
When the Tories are led by a leader whose principles don't match my own, like Theresa May all of the time or late 2021 Boris, then I say so. When have you done the same?
Apparently, women are big champagne buyers in a certain part of the market (the-meet up-with-a-friend-for-a-drink), but in many cultures/social situations find drinking half a bottle of wine excessive. So at the moment, they buy by the glass....
Saying you did is easier said than done, I'm not questioning your integrity but I have a track record here, I wrote thousands of posts on this site opposing Theresa May's Premiership and saying she was unsuitable from before she became PM, through her horrendous deal I opposed at all three Meaningful Votes (unlike Boris). I wrote so here at the time so my record is there for all to see.
I wasn't a member here at the time - 2005 I voted Lib Dem, 2010 I voted Tory
It's nonsense, as all they have done is difference the figures between the two dates.
https://twitter.com/john_actuary/status/1474110478498549768
https://twitter.com/NShropshire_CLP/status/1470363956304879627?s=19.
I also still voted for all the Tory candidates standing even in the Aberystwyth Town Council election
Besides, Real Men (TM) use Avon Skin So Soft...
I have opened the Cornish Gouda. It is rather nice.
The Merry Wyfe was finished off yesterday. A bit smelly, but tasty stuff.
And on that note, it is Dinner Time...
I’m pretty sure its the latter. I think there has been enough time by now to see.
I think you have to find examples where you either voted for another party, or opposed policy on a significant issue where the party was all-but united.
Also, you don't have much of a track record on this site at all, Bartholomew. You can't have that one both ways.
Town Council elections have zero effect on the Union
There are even some evangelical Protestant Labour supporters
https://twitter.com/UB5simon/status/1471879016286240774?s=20
Their number is wrong, but the number of incedentals is increasing. Omicron is going to be a bugger to stop nosocomial infections.
Comedy Gold? Yes
After the 2010 to 2015 Tory and LD coalition the LDs are not trusted by the leftwing of the Labour Party
Vines have been grown in England since Roman times for winemaking. The Doomsday book refers to over 42 vineyards in Southern England at the end of the 11th Century and there are now more than 500 vineyards in England and Wales producing still and sparkling wines.
https://hambledonvineyard.co.uk/pages/history-of-english-wine
https://wingsoverscotland.com/tory-council-election-manifesto-launched/
But then, I am not an investment professional, so better get advice from someone who knows.
But just in case: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjWg5jVwfz0AhVRa8AKHU7OBGEQ3yx6BAgGEAI&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy6wryJMwVU&usg=AOvVaw1sOd2Q3WQYrbikMdX4ahrF
I opposed May before her deal was causing issues and quit the party before then. I was disgusted at her xenophobia and authoritarianism even more than her deal.
I had the misfortune to sit in the audience through her 2015 Conference Speech in real life which was the nastiest speech I have ever heard in real life.
But if you want something different and from left field I called for a u turn on the exams fiasco last year over a week before it happened and before even Starmer was speaking on it, while the party was united in saying there were no issues.
He was obsessed with chickens....
If following the next election the Tories have 310 seats and the LDs 20 it'll be plausible enough for the Tories to end up continuing as a minority government even if Lab+LD+SNP+PC+GREEN totals more seats than Tories alone.
Often, on shows like "X has Talent" or "The Voice", I think of my favorite artists and wonder if they'd make it through auditions. Many would not.
Evening it’s always a film and it will be again except this year we’re experimenting rather than sticking to an old faithful. A risk, I know, but you have to do that sometimes otherwise nothing ever changes. Whatever, the decision is made, we’re going to watch a movie I’ve never seen before. It’s a Bruce Willis ‘action hero’ yarn, would you believe, not my usual sort of thing at all but I’m happy to give it a whirl.
Wishing PB and all PBers a Merry Christmas.
Not saying it would be an explosive mix. Just that it would make the Hindenburg look like a slow burn....
Would kill Coalition politics for decades and decades.
"There are many theories to explain this peculiar size.
- One of these goes back to a very practical issue dated back to the 18° century, when they discovered the importance to store the wine in glass bottles. At the time, the glass bottles were made by glass blowers. Their pulmonary strenght was obviously limited and permitted to create only bottles up to 650-750 ml size. So they decided to use the biggest one between those, the 750 ml bottle.
- According to another theory 750 ml is the exact quantity of wine per 6 serving glasses (125ml each) used in “osteria”.
- Others say that the 750 ml standard was a metric adaptation of the fifth (fifth of a gallon)
Funny to think football was abandoned on the back of two positive tests way back when.
I think that might be a different film!
It doesn't involve magic, it involves bringing out the best in human nature. A true miracle and a wonderful parable, even for the non religious like me. Happy Christmas.
The experience of 2010-15 has put a lot of the party off any kind of arrangement, formal or otherwise. We could simply look at each piece of legislation and take a view - support what we like, oppose what we don't.
Of course, the "none of us wants the Tories back" argument will have a lot of force throughout the parties of the new Government so there will be a necessity for goodwill and compromise on all sides.
The Panto is pretty safe*. And dont listen to those who shout "Oh no it isnt".
* More likely to be cancelled because actors have covid than restrictions.