I never claimed immunity is an on/off switch but there is concern over time that immunity wanes and we will be in a lot of trouble.
We see this in the studies that show two doses gives reduced protection.
Against infection yes. Better against serious disease. The concern is mostly journalists I think, and people on Twitter. Most immunologists are happy with how the vaccines are going.
Happy with now but we likely need more boosters and the studies themselves note reduced immunity as a big concern.
They definitely have not concluded there is nothing to worry about
Again, which immunity? It’s very complicated, hence journalists get hung up on neutralisation studies, not the full picture.
Hard to avoid the conclusion that devolution was a big political error.
One could however devise a counterfactual along the lines that devolution kept the Union together for an additional decade or so. The Poll Tax really changed people's minds: a tax imposed on Scotland but not England (and so contrary to the Union Treaty btw), when Scotland but not England had had a huge rates revaluation, and imposed by a government which had no legitimacy in Scotland in terms of the vote or seats. The contrast between that lack of legitimacy and the imposition of a separate tax on Scotland really woke people up and activated the things that led to the Constitutional Convention and the rise of the SNP.
I thought that was an artefact of when the rates review was due?
It was.
It was also still a foolish political mistake that made it look like Scotland was being singled out.
Especially as the rates review for England had just been cancelled - twice, acc. to Wiki. So if you had to pick on one of the four nations as a guinea pig then you wouldn't sensibly pick on Scotland rather than England, seeng as the Scots residents needed local taxation reform less than the English residents.
They thought it would be popular. The Scottish ministers lobbied hard for it to be introduced in Scotland first.
'Scottish ministers' - that was before devolution, of course; George Younger was the relevant Secretary of State.
You sure? I thought Rifkind had replaced him by the time the decision to trial it in Scotland was made?
(Edit - and Younger was Scottish as well, anyway.)
The decision was made at Mr Y's behest and during his tenure, but yes, Mr R followed as S of S and had to cope with the results. I can't recall if he campaigned for the early intro in Scotland as a MP before that.
George Younger was Scottish all right, or rather more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency, but S of S by virtue of an administration for which the Scots did not vote, generally: which was a serious problem when the Scots got landed with this new tax.
I accept your point about the lack of a democratic mandate in Scotland, but I'm now intrigued.
By what definition is a man born in Stirling, from an Alloa family, whose father had a peerage derived from a Scottish town, who fought three parliamentary constituencies all in Scotland and who was ultimately chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (based in Edinburgh) 'more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency' rather than just 'Scottish?'
I mean, by what definition would he *not* be Scottish?
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
I never claimed immunity is an on/off switch but there is concern over time that immunity wanes and we will be in a lot of trouble.
We see this in the studies that show two doses gives reduced protection.
Against infection yes. Better against serious disease. The concern is mostly journalists I think, and people on Twitter. Most immunologists are happy with how the vaccines are going.
Happy with now but we likely need more boosters and the studies themselves note reduced immunity as a big concern.
They definitely have not concluded there is nothing to worry about
Again, which immunity? It’s very complicated, hence journalists get hung up on neutralisation studies, not the full picture.
Nothing to do with journalists, I'm reading the actual studies.
It seems like you're interpreting it via journalists as well, just from the other side.
I do not think we are out of the woods - of course I hope I am wrong!
Hard to avoid the conclusion that devolution was a big political error.
One could however devise a counterfactual along the lines that devolution kept the Union together for an additional decade or so. The Poll Tax really changed people's minds: a tax imposed on Scotland but not England (and so contrary to the Union Treaty btw), when Scotland but not England had had a huge rates revaluation, and imposed by a government which had no legitimacy in Scotland in terms of the vote or seats. The contrast between that lack of legitimacy and the imposition of a separate tax on Scotland really woke people up and activated the things that led to the Constitutional Convention and the rise of the SNP.
I thought that was an artefact of when the rates review was due?
It was.
It was also still a foolish political mistake that made it look like Scotland was being singled out.
Especially as the rates review for England had just been cancelled - twice, acc. to Wiki. So if you had to pick on one of the four nations as a guinea pig then you wouldn't sensibly pick on Scotland rather than England, seeng as the Scots residents needed local taxation reform less than the English residents.
They thought it would be popular. The Scottish ministers lobbied hard for it to be introduced in Scotland first.
'Scottish ministers' - that was before devolution, of course; George Younger was the relevant Secretary of State.
Exactly absolute bollox, English lickspittle ministers foisted it on Scotland as an experiment as they were crapping it to introduce it in their own backyard. Always best to test it out on a colony first.
I never claimed immunity is an on/off switch but there is concern over time that immunity wanes and we will be in a lot of trouble.
We see this in the studies that show two doses gives reduced protection.
Against infection yes. Better against serious disease. The concern is mostly journalists I think, and people on Twitter. Most immunologists are happy with how the vaccines are going.
Happy with now but we likely need more boosters and the studies themselves note reduced immunity as a big concern.
They definitely have not concluded there is nothing to worry about
Again, which immunity? It’s very complicated, hence journalists get hung up on neutralisation studies, not the full picture.
Nothing to do with journalists, I'm reading the actual studies.
It seems like you're interpreting it via journalists as well, just from the other side.
I do not think we are out of the woods - of course I hope I am wrong!
I teach medicinal chemistry and I’m very much immersed in the scientific literature. I read the studies, I’m suggesting that the worry about waning immunity is primarily a media notion based on the natural decline of nABs.
If Labour get a reputation as the pro-Union party which thanks to the Tories, they are at the moment perhaps, I'd expect them to make gains up to and around 2017 levels of seats
Labour are super-soft on the Union.
Funny, the SNP say Slab are uber-Unionists.
Just another case of SNP Types being wrong I guess. They'll get their indyref2 under Starmer
There will be no referendum while Sturgeon is there.
I wish that were true. I'd say it's a 50pc chance of a Lab/SNP coaltion with an inevitable indyref2 to go with it.
she will have an excuse for sure if still there and same will apply if Macbeth replaces her
Sounds like you've conceded Malky
Long Live The Union!
Not at all, do you read posts, whilst Sturgeon is there. That will not be long her past will catch up with her soon and then hopefully a real Independence supporter will be in place for next Westminster election and will remove the need for a referendum by making the vote an independence vote.
Regardless as Union matters are reserved to Westminster that would still need UK government consent for independence.
Unless the Scottish government tried to declare UDI a la Catalonia's government in 2017.
I never claimed immunity is an on/off switch but there is concern over time that immunity wanes and we will be in a lot of trouble.
We see this in the studies that show two doses gives reduced protection.
Against infection yes. Better against serious disease. The concern is mostly journalists I think, and people on Twitter. Most immunologists are happy with how the vaccines are going.
Happy with now but we likely need more boosters and the studies themselves note reduced immunity as a big concern.
They definitely have not concluded there is nothing to worry about
Again, which immunity? It’s very complicated, hence journalists get hung up on neutralisation studies, not the full picture.
Nothing to do with journalists, I'm reading the actual studies.
It seems like you're interpreting it via journalists as well, just from the other side.
I do not think we are out of the woods - of course I hope I am wrong!
I teach medicinal chemistry and I’m very much immersed in the scientific literature. I read the studies, I’m suggesting that the worry about waning immunity is primarily a media notion based on the natural decline of nABs.
The studies themselves note waning immunity is a concern. I am just repeating what they say.
The studies do not - as the media have said - suggest everything is okay.
I never claimed immunity is an on/off switch but there is concern over time that immunity wanes and we will be in a lot of trouble.
We see this in the studies that show two doses gives reduced protection.
Against infection yes. Better against serious disease. The concern is mostly journalists I think, and people on Twitter. Most immunologists are happy with how the vaccines are going.
Happy with now but we likely need more boosters and the studies themselves note reduced immunity as a big concern.
They definitely have not concluded there is nothing to worry about
Again, which immunity? It’s very complicated, hence journalists get hung up on neutralisation studies, not the full picture.
Nothing to do with journalists, I'm reading the actual studies.
It seems like you're interpreting it via journalists as well, just from the other side.
I do not think we are out of the woods - of course I hope I am wrong!
I teach medicinal chemistry and I’m very much immersed in the scientific literature. I read the studies, I’m suggesting that the worry about waning immunity is primarily a media notion based on the natural decline of nABs.
The studies themselves note waning immunity is a concern. I am just repeating what they say.
The studies do not - as the media have said - suggest everything is okay.
Which immunity? The natural decline of nABs or the protection against serious disease?
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
Hard to avoid the conclusion that devolution was a big political error.
One could however devise a counterfactual along the lines that devolution kept the Union together for an additional decade or so. The Poll Tax really changed people's minds: a tax imposed on Scotland but not England (and so contrary to the Union Treaty btw), when Scotland but not England had had a huge rates revaluation, and imposed by a government which had no legitimacy in Scotland in terms of the vote or seats. The contrast between that lack of legitimacy and the imposition of a separate tax on Scotland really woke people up and activated the things that led to the Constitutional Convention and the rise of the SNP.
I thought that was an artefact of when the rates review was due?
That was the excuse. They wanted to use the Scots as guinea pigs.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
If Labour get a reputation as the pro-Union party which thanks to the Tories, they are at the moment perhaps, I'd expect them to make gains up to and around 2017 levels of seats
Labour are super-soft on the Union.
Funny, the SNP say Slab are uber-Unionists.
Just another case of SNP Types being wrong I guess. They'll get their indyref2 under Starmer
There will be no referendum while Sturgeon is there.
I wish that were true. I'd say it's a 50pc chance of a Lab/SNP coaltion with an inevitable indyref2 to go with it.
she will have an excuse for sure if still there and same will apply if Macbeth replaces her
Sounds like you've conceded Malky
Long Live The Union!
Not at all, do you read posts, whilst Sturgeon is there. That will not be long her past will catch up with her soon and then hopefully a real Independence supporter will be in place for next Westminster election and will remove the need for a referendum by making the vote an independence vote.
Happy Christmas Malc. And everyone else for that matter.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
We discussed this yonks ago and it is hard to understand why HMG cannot solve this passport/visa issue for school trips. Of course, Covid restrictions on travel in both directions is an issue but hopefully a temporary one. (Anecdata: one day in a short walk along the South Bank, I counted seven school parties from Germany alone.)
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
Yeah, and the UK's reputation of being a bad place re: covid is making the comparisons to other countries a bit unfair.
Hard to avoid the conclusion that devolution was a big political error.
One could however devise a counterfactual along the lines that devolution kept the Union together for an additional decade or so. The Poll Tax really changed people's minds: a tax imposed on Scotland but not England (and so contrary to the Union Treaty btw), when Scotland but not England had had a huge rates revaluation, and imposed by a government which had no legitimacy in Scotland in terms of the vote or seats. The contrast between that lack of legitimacy and the imposition of a separate tax on Scotland really woke people up and activated the things that led to the Constitutional Convention and the rise of the SNP.
I thought that was an artefact of when the rates review was due?
It was.
It was also still a foolish political mistake that made it look like Scotland was being singled out.
Especially as the rates review for England had just been cancelled - twice, acc. to Wiki. So if you had to pick on one of the four nations as a guinea pig then you wouldn't sensibly pick on Scotland rather than England, seeng as the Scots residents needed local taxation reform less than the English residents.
They thought it would be popular. The Scottish ministers lobbied hard for it to be introduced in Scotland first.
'Scottish ministers' - that was before devolution, of course; George Younger was the relevant Secretary of State.
You sure? I thought Rifkind had replaced him by the time the decision to trial it in Scotland was made?
(Edit - and Younger was Scottish as well, anyway.)
The decision was made at Mr Y's behest and during his tenure, but yes, Mr R followed as S of S and had to cope with the results. I can't recall if he campaigned for the early intro in Scotland as a MP before that.
George Younger was Scottish all right, or rather more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency, but S of S by virtue of an administration for which the Scots did not vote, generally: which was a serious problem when the Scots got landed with this new tax.
I accept your point about the lack of a democratic mandate in Scotland, but I'm now intrigued.
By what definition is a man born in Stirling, from an Alloa family, whose father had a peerage derived from a Scottish town, who fought three parliamentary constituencies all in Scotland and who was ultimately chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (based in Edinburgh) 'more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency' rather than just 'Scottish?'
I mean, by what definition would he *not* be Scottish?
Oh, of course, he's certainly Scottish, very much so. I just meant it's not specifically necessary to him standing as a MP for a Scottish constituency. Wouldn't want to imply otherwise even by accident.
Though it seems to be Conservative policy that birth in Scotland is a suitable qualification for a payroll position at the Scotland Office. Habing James Gray and Eleanor Laing as successive Shadow SoSfS given their constituences outside the country was inevitable for lack of MPs for relevant constituencies, IIRC. but when Robin Walker MP was appointed as PUSSfS some years back it was strange as he was MP for a non-Scottish constituency when there were plenty of Tory MPs for Scottish constituencies.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
It is worth remembering that myocarditis is a common side effect of exercising when your immune system is active. Most myocarditis cases happen when fit people get colds, and don't want to miss a 10K they were entered in for, and run it anyway.
It should be no surprise our immune systems go into overdrive following the MRNA jabs (and probably to a lesser extent the other vaccinations). The advice should be to avoid strenuous exercise for 48 hours.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Is there actually a plausible mechanism for long-term side effects?
I don't know how reliable that source is of course, but it doesn't seem implausible given their situation.
Well, as it is saying it "may", then it's bound to be correct, because "may" also implies the existence of "may not".
It is curious the different Covid trends right now:
Spain spiking sharply Belgium, on the other had, has cases down about 70% from its early January peak Portugal and Italy are seeing new daily highs for infections Germany continues to track downwards France is still rising, but the pace seems to have really slowed Sweden is also seeing a sustained rise off a fairly low base Denmark has Covid numbers four times its previous peak
Not to say not but can't find the research on it. Googling Covid heart problems gets you to the vaccine research.
The BMJ had some data on the relative risks of various side-effects of vaccines vs. virus. Doesn't have myocarditis specifically, but had some other heart risks : https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1931 (there's a handy infographic near the top)
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Is there actually a plausible mechanism for long-term side effects?
Using the anecdata of my aunt - and her physio, no less - her tinnitus was worsened after the jabs. Googling, it is also known as the Pfizer hiss.
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Is there actually a plausible mechanism for long-term side effects?
Using the anecdata of my aunt - and her physio, no less - her tinnitus was worsened after the jabs. Googling, it is also known as the Pfizer hiss.
That sounds like a known side-effect, since it's happening to people now. Aren't the anti-vaxxers worried about something that is years away? Far enough away that you can never appease them.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Is there actually a plausible mechanism for long-term side effects?
The vaccines themselves (as in the substances themselves) are flushed from the body within about 48 hours.
So, you therefore have to be pretty stupid postulate some mechanism where the immune system sometime later does something bad because it was previously exposed to a small part (the spike protein) of the Coronavirus.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
We discussed this yonks ago and it is hard to understand why HMG cannot solve this passport/visa issue for school trips. Of course, Covid restrictions on travel in both directions is an issue but hopefully a temporary one. (Anecdata: one day in a short walk along the South Bank, I counted seven school parties from Germany alone.)
If Labour get a reputation as the pro-Union party which thanks to the Tories, they are at the moment perhaps, I'd expect them to make gains up to and around 2017 levels of seats
Labour are super-soft on the Union.
Funny, the SNP say Slab are uber-Unionists.
Just another case of SNP Types being wrong I guess. They'll get their indyref2 under Starmer
There will be no referendum while Sturgeon is there.
I wish that were true. I'd say it's a 50pc chance of a Lab/SNP coaltion with an inevitable indyref2 to go with it.
she will have an excuse for sure if still there and same will apply if Macbeth replaces her
Sounds like you've conceded Malky
Long Live The Union!
Not at all, do you read posts, whilst Sturgeon is there. That will not be long her past will catch up with her soon and then hopefully a real Independence supporter will be in place for next Westminster election and will remove the need for a referendum by making the vote an independence vote.
Happy Christmas Malc. And everyone else for that matter.
Same to you Topping and best wishes for a Happy new year. Hopefully it will be a good one.
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
Personally, I'd take fewer French schoolkids as a Brexit dividend, but that may just be me.
Not to say not but can't find the research on it. Googling Covid heart problems gets you to the vaccine research.
The BMJ had some data on the relative risks of various side-effects of vaccines vs. virus. Doesn't have myocarditis specifically, but had some other heart risks : https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1931 (there's a handy infographic near the top)
Hard to avoid the conclusion that devolution was a big political error.
One could however devise a counterfactual along the lines that devolution kept the Union together for an additional decade or so. The Poll Tax really changed people's minds: a tax imposed on Scotland but not England (and so contrary to the Union Treaty btw), when Scotland but not England had had a huge rates revaluation, and imposed by a government which had no legitimacy in Scotland in terms of the vote or seats. The contrast between that lack of legitimacy and the imposition of a separate tax on Scotland really woke people up and activated the things that led to the Constitutional Convention and the rise of the SNP.
I thought that was an artefact of when the rates review was due?
It was.
It was also still a foolish political mistake that made it look like Scotland was being singled out.
Especially as the rates review for England had just been cancelled - twice, acc. to Wiki. So if you had to pick on one of the four nations as a guinea pig then you wouldn't sensibly pick on Scotland rather than England, seeng as the Scots residents needed local taxation reform less than the English residents.
They thought it would be popular. The Scottish ministers lobbied hard for it to be introduced in Scotland first.
'Scottish ministers' - that was before devolution, of course; George Younger was the relevant Secretary of State.
You sure? I thought Rifkind had replaced him by the time the decision to trial it in Scotland was made?
(Edit - and Younger was Scottish as well, anyway.)
The decision was made at Mr Y's behest and during his tenure, but yes, Mr R followed as S of S and had to cope with the results. I can't recall if he campaigned for the early intro in Scotland as a MP before that.
George Younger was Scottish all right, or rather more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency, but S of S by virtue of an administration for which the Scots did not vote, generally: which was a serious problem when the Scots got landed with this new tax.
I accept your point about the lack of a democratic mandate in Scotland, but I'm now intrigued.
By what definition is a man born in Stirling, from an Alloa family, whose father had a peerage derived from a Scottish town, who fought three parliamentary constituencies all in Scotland and who was ultimately chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (based in Edinburgh) 'more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency' rather than just 'Scottish?'
I mean, by what definition would he *not* be Scottish?
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
The question is, would any leader result in a better performance than Johnson? The polling when he was elected showed only him producing a majority and prior to him, it was clear the Tories were headed for defeat.
So why does this necessarily mean the Tories will win with a new leader?
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
The question is, would any leader result in a better performance than Johnson? The polling when he was elected showed only him producing a majority and prior to him, it was clear the Tories were headed for defeat.
So why does this necessarily mean the Tories will win with a new leader?
Depends how clean the break is, I suppose. And I didn't mean to imply that they will win if they simply change the leader. I was just saying it wouldn't be a binary contest between Boris or not Boris if he wasn't PM.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
The question is, would any leader result in a better performance than Johnson? The polling when he was elected showed only him producing a majority and prior to him, it was clear the Tories were headed for defeat.
So why does this necessarily mean the Tories will win with a new leader?
Depends how clean the break is, I suppose. And I didn't mean to imply that they will win if they simply change the leader. I was just saying it wouldn't be a binary contest between Boris or not Boris if he wasn't PM.
What break can they make, they either go to the left or further to the right
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Is there actually a plausible mechanism for long-term side effects?
Using the anecdata of my aunt - and her physio, no less - her tinnitus was worsened after the jabs. Googling, it is also known as the Pfizer hiss.
That sounds like a known side-effect, since it's happening to people now. Aren't the anti-vaxxers worried about something that is years away? Far enough away that you can never appease them.
Ah not sure.
The point is that there is a range of side effects which have been noted now and I don't think it unreasonable for people to be concerned that some more will manifest themselves in time.
These people are evidently not persuaded by the but Covid argument.
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
The question is, would any leader result in a better performance than Johnson? The polling when he was elected showed only him producing a majority and prior to him, it was clear the Tories were headed for defeat.
So why does this necessarily mean the Tories will win with a new leader?
Depends how clean the break is, I suppose. And I didn't mean to imply that they will win if they simply change the leader. I was just saying it wouldn't be a binary contest between Boris or not Boris if he wasn't PM.
What break can they make, they either go to the left or further to the right
That’s rather simplistic. As you know there is more to politics than just left and right.
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
I believe it is largely about acquiring large volumes of new cars at massive discounts. That Nissan Micra deal I mentioned allows you to use the car for the first 3 years of its life for £5400. The car costs £15k new. The leasing company must be buying the car at a massive discount, which would make sense as it is a dated model, there is probably a surplus that the manufacturer needs to get rid of. So the price would be set by three factors: the cost of acquiring the car, the likely resale value (presumably at auction to a used car dealer), and the demand for it on the lease market.
So it follows that - unless the lease has punitive provisions, as a consumer you are much better off leasing a Nissan Micra than buying it new.
They're not buying it at a massive discount: hence the fact that you can get the same leasing deal on a car sitting on a forecourt of an independent Nissan dealer with an independent finance company.
Leasing rates are set by (a) interest rates available to the leaser, and (b) expectations of the future value of used vehicles.
With the pandemic, two things happened: First, used car values shot up meaning that the financial models used to price leasing rates were based around higher residual values. Second, interest rates came down. Joe's Automotive Finance Company (and all its competitors) therefore found they could cut prices to gain market share while maintaining margins.
All that being said...
I think you are right to lease right now. I think finance companies are too optimistic on residual values, and that interest rates are probably going to rise.
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
You overestimate the Party's ability to get rid of him. Even Thatcher who had actually lost most of her Cabinet by 1992 only missed hanging on by a couple of votes. The patronage of a Tory PM makes them close to immovable and we all know Boris has no shame. To get rid of him you'd need Pickfords
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
The question is, would any leader result in a better performance than Johnson? The polling when he was elected showed only him producing a majority and prior to him, it was clear the Tories were headed for defeat.
So why does this necessarily mean the Tories will win with a new leader?
Depends how clean the break is, I suppose. And I didn't mean to imply that they will win if they simply change the leader. I was just saying it wouldn't be a binary contest between Boris or not Boris if he wasn't PM.
What break can they make, they either go to the left or further to the right
That’s rather simplistic. As you know there is more to politics than just left and right.
We don't do it during bad fly seasons, and we certainly didn't do it during the Delta peak in September. It's very much a result of political rhetoric (not a bad thing, of course: "dig for victory").
A few family members have tested positive and the reaction hasn't been "shit we've got the virus" but "balls we can't come over for dinner". It's an important distinction I reckon, especially after Christmas and the visiting of elderly relatives.
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
The question is, would any leader result in a better performance than Johnson? The polling when he was elected showed only him producing a majority and prior to him, it was clear the Tories were headed for defeat.
So why does this necessarily mean the Tories will win with a new leader?
Depends how clean the break is, I suppose. And I didn't mean to imply that they will win if they simply change the leader. I was just saying it wouldn't be a binary contest between Boris or not Boris if he wasn't PM.
What break can they make, they either go to the left or further to the right
That’s rather simplistic. As you know there is more to politics than just left and right.
Well, what would the next leader do?
I’ve no idea. An improvement would be to get a grip on standards and throw out any mps and ministers who break the rules. The ability to lead the nation has been destroyed by the inability to follow rules and standards that where expected of everyone else.
Weather report - technically, Seattle had a White Christmas, in that a few snow flurries fell on the city yesterday.
But the REAL news is today's blizzard across Western Washington. With Seattle as the epicenter, where yours truly woke up this morning to find 5-inches of snow on my humble front porch. And it's still coming down like a sonofabitch. With temperatures in the upper-20s F.
Forecast for the next week is more of the same. Very little vehicle traffic at the moment (thank God) and not much foot traffic either. Though did see someone out with their cross-country skis!
Hard to avoid the conclusion that devolution was a big political error.
One could however devise a counterfactual along the lines that devolution kept the Union together for an additional decade or so. The Poll Tax really changed people's minds: a tax imposed on Scotland but not England (and so contrary to the Union Treaty btw), when Scotland but not England had had a huge rates revaluation, and imposed by a government which had no legitimacy in Scotland in terms of the vote or seats. The contrast between that lack of legitimacy and the imposition of a separate tax on Scotland really woke people up and activated the things that led to the Constitutional Convention and the rise of the SNP.
I thought that was an artefact of when the rates review was due?
It was.
It was also still a foolish political mistake that made it look like Scotland was being singled out.
Especially as the rates review for England had just been cancelled - twice, acc. to Wiki. So if you had to pick on one of the four nations as a guinea pig then you wouldn't sensibly pick on Scotland rather than England, seeng as the Scots residents needed local taxation reform less than the English residents.
They thought it would be popular. The Scottish ministers lobbied hard for it to be introduced in Scotland first.
'Scottish ministers' - that was before devolution, of course; George Younger was the relevant Secretary of State.
You sure? I thought Rifkind had replaced him by the time the decision to trial it in Scotland was made?
(Edit - and Younger was Scottish as well, anyway.)
The decision was made at Mr Y's behest and during his tenure, but yes, Mr R followed as S of S and had to cope with the results. I can't recall if he campaigned for the early intro in Scotland as a MP before that.
George Younger was Scottish all right, or rather more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency, but S of S by virtue of an administration for which the Scots did not vote, generally: which was a serious problem when the Scots got landed with this new tax.
I accept your point about the lack of a democratic mandate in Scotland, but I'm now intrigued.
By what definition is a man born in Stirling, from an Alloa family, whose father had a peerage derived from a Scottish town, who fought three parliamentary constituencies all in Scotland and who was ultimately chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (based in Edinburgh) 'more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency' rather than just 'Scottish?'
I mean, by what definition would he *not* be Scottish?
He was a Toom Tabard
You have used that expression so often I have googled it. Now I know much more than I used to about John Balliol so thanks for that
So let's get this straight then in May of this year voters in Brexit heartlands such as Hartlepool voted for the Tories and were ringing into radio shows saying they could not vote for a Labour lead party by Keir Starmer due to his second referendum stance and taking the knee. Does anyone really think that leave voters in Hartlepool and Bassetlaw are queuing up to elect the same party as David Lamey, Keir Starmer - Alistair Campbell? Surely this MRP projection giving Labour a 26 majority is midterm dissatisfaction? I am not denying Boris is not in trouble but has their really been a massive swing to Labour - I'm not convinced by that. Can Labour really overturn a 16,000 majority in seats like Bassetlaw these days??
Your assumptions are that most voters in the Red Wall still care about Brexit.
These same voters happily voted for Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Alastair Campbell in various ways between 1997 and 2019, I think you overstate the impact of these people to be honest
I'm sure you're right. This next election will be a simple binary contest. You want Boris or you don't want Boris. I suspect by now even the Hartlepudlians will consider getting rid of him a more pressing consideration than anything to do with Brexit. He's shafted us all.
That's if he's PM at the time of the next election. Seems unlikely at the moment.
You overestimate the Party's ability to get rid of him. Even Thatcher who had actually lost most of her Cabinet by 1992 only missed hanging on by a couple of votes. The patronage of a Tory PM makes them close to immovable and we all know Boris has no shame. To get rid of him you'd need Pickfords
Hanging on by a couple of votes wouldn't cut it. See what happened after May's successful confidence vote.
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
So if bangernomics goes, leasing won't work either?
The cost of manufacturing a car has to be recovered across its useful life. If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises.
How this rise is distributed is an interesting question, but if leasing/pcp deals start to resemble 50% of useful life rather than 25% they are going to become spectacularly expensive as the residual at the end is rubbish.
Where the system may well collapse is if the shortening lifespans aren't priced in by the leasing suits who assume previous levels of residuals are achievable, but who then discover they've taken a one way bet on a lot of very expensive tat.
I'm a bit bemused by the type of person who runs new cars - my current banger cost me £2k five years ago, I've so far got 112k miles out of it. It is getting a bit tired now, but had I leased a Micra (a vastly inferior car) for £150 a month I would have had spent £9k to achieve the same result (and I bet the £150 a month doesn't give you 20-25k annual miles either).
"If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises. "
Why do you think useful life is becoming "substantially shorter"?
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
Hard to avoid the conclusion that devolution was a big political error.
One could however devise a counterfactual along the lines that devolution kept the Union together for an additional decade or so. The Poll Tax really changed people's minds: a tax imposed on Scotland but not England (and so contrary to the Union Treaty btw), when Scotland but not England had had a huge rates revaluation, and imposed by a government which had no legitimacy in Scotland in terms of the vote or seats. The contrast between that lack of legitimacy and the imposition of a separate tax on Scotland really woke people up and activated the things that led to the Constitutional Convention and the rise of the SNP.
I thought that was an artefact of when the rates review was due?
It was.
It was also still a foolish political mistake that made it look like Scotland was being singled out.
Especially as the rates review for England had just been cancelled - twice, acc. to Wiki. So if you had to pick on one of the four nations as a guinea pig then you wouldn't sensibly pick on Scotland rather than England, seeng as the Scots residents needed local taxation reform less than the English residents.
They thought it would be popular. The Scottish ministers lobbied hard for it to be introduced in Scotland first.
'Scottish ministers' - that was before devolution, of course; George Younger was the relevant Secretary of State.
You sure? I thought Rifkind had replaced him by the time the decision to trial it in Scotland was made?
(Edit - and Younger was Scottish as well, anyway.)
The decision was made at Mr Y's behest and during his tenure, but yes, Mr R followed as S of S and had to cope with the results. I can't recall if he campaigned for the early intro in Scotland as a MP before that.
George Younger was Scottish all right, or rather more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency, but S of S by virtue of an administration for which the Scots did not vote, generally: which was a serious problem when the Scots got landed with this new tax.
I accept your point about the lack of a democratic mandate in Scotland, but I'm now intrigued.
By what definition is a man born in Stirling, from an Alloa family, whose father had a peerage derived from a Scottish town, who fought three parliamentary constituencies all in Scotland and who was ultimately chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (based in Edinburgh) 'more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency' rather than just 'Scottish?'
I mean, by what definition would he *not* be Scottish?
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
So if bangernomics goes, leasing won't work either?
The cost of manufacturing a car has to be recovered across its useful life. If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises.
How this rise is distributed is an interesting question, but if leasing/pcp deals start to resemble 50% of useful life rather than 25% they are going to become spectacularly expensive as the residual at the end is rubbish.
Where the system may well collapse is if the shortening lifespans aren't priced in by the leasing suits who assume previous levels of residuals are achievable, but who then discover they've taken a one way bet on a lot of very expensive tat.
I'm a bit bemused by the type of person who runs new cars - my current banger cost me £2k five years ago, I've so far got 112k miles out of it. It is getting a bit tired now, but had I leased a Micra (a vastly inferior car) for £150 a month I would have had spent £9k to achieve the same result (and I bet the £150 a month doesn't give you 20-25k annual miles either).
"If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises. "
Why do you think useful life is becoming "substantially shorter"?
Because all the fancy gizmos on new cars breakdown within 10 years of use.
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
We have reached a situation where *guidance* is probably more appropriate, for all but the most high risk of situations.
So, I would have a vaccine mandate for hospital staff, and have visitors wearing masks. And I would probably require masks on public transport.
And I would suggest that people avoid high risk events, especially if they are going to be mixing with elderly relatives.
Not a bad set of recommendations.
Today I had lunch with my brother and sister in law. My niece had to stay away in a cottage because there were two vulnerable people there (immune deficiency and emphysema) and she had tested positive nine days ago.
I'm sure the behaviour would have been the same three years ago had she had a bad case of the flu. But somehow no one needed to make it explicit then.
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
I believe it is largely about acquiring large volumes of new cars at massive discounts. That Nissan Micra deal I mentioned allows you to use the car for the first 3 years of its life for £5400. The car costs £15k new. The leasing company must be buying the car at a massive discount, which would make sense as it is a dated model, there is probably a surplus that the manufacturer needs to get rid of. So the price would be set by three factors: the cost of acquiring the car, the likely resale value (presumably at auction to a used car dealer), and the demand for it on the lease market.
So it follows that - unless the lease has punitive provisions, as a consumer you are much better off leasing a Nissan Micra than buying it new.
They're not buying it at a massive discount: hence the fact that you can get the same leasing deal on a car sitting on a forecourt of an independent Nissan dealer with an independent finance company.
Leasing rates are set by (a) interest rates available to the leaser, and (b) expectations of the future value of used vehicles.
With the pandemic, two things happened: First, used car values shot up meaning that the financial models used to price leasing rates were based around higher residual values. Second, interest rates came down. Joe's Automotive Finance Company (and all its competitors) therefore found they could cut prices to gain market share while maintaining margins.
All that being said...
I think you are right to lease right now. I think finance companies are too optimistic on residual values, and that interest rates are probably going to rise.
I am not in this business so I don't have any particular knowledge. But to me the assumption that a 3 year old, 15000 mile Nissan Micra will sell for £9500 in 3 years time is very unsafe; and that would be the price it would need to sell for for the leasing company just to cover the depreciation cost. To make a profit, ie to cover administration, interest rates, and risks such as lease default or damage then the resale value must be significantly higher than £9.5k; it seems almost absurd.
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
I believe it is largely about acquiring large volumes of new cars at massive discounts. That Nissan Micra deal I mentioned allows you to use the car for the first 3 years of its life for £5400. The car costs £15k new. The leasing company must be buying the car at a massive discount, which would make sense as it is a dated model, there is probably a surplus that the manufacturer needs to get rid of. So the price would be set by three factors: the cost of acquiring the car, the likely resale value (presumably at auction to a used car dealer), and the demand for it on the lease market.
So it follows that - unless the lease has punitive provisions, as a consumer you are much better off leasing a Nissan Micra than buying it new.
They're not buying it at a massive discount: hence the fact that you can get the same leasing deal on a car sitting on a forecourt of an independent Nissan dealer with an independent finance company.
Leasing rates are set by (a) interest rates available to the leaser, and (b) expectations of the future value of used vehicles.
With the pandemic, two things happened: First, used car values shot up meaning that the financial models used to price leasing rates were based around higher residual values. Second, interest rates came down. Joe's Automotive Finance Company (and all its competitors) therefore found they could cut prices to gain market share while maintaining margins.
All that being said...
I think you are right to lease right now. I think finance companies are too optimistic on residual values, and that interest rates are probably going to rise.
I am not in this business so I don't have any particular knowledge. But to me the assumption that a 3 year old, 15000 mile Nissan Micra will sell for £9500 in 3 years time is very unsafe; and that would be the price it would need to sell for for the leasing company just to cover the depreciation cost. To make a profit, ie to cover administration, interest rates, and risks such as lease default or damage then the resale value must be significantly higher than £9.5k; it seems almost absurd.
It is unsafe. You are correct.
But you will find similar examples in the US, and you will find them with independent leasing companies, as well as with tied ones. It is a consequence of zero interest rates and high residuals.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I have no idea. But I don't presume to know better than the tour operators themselves what is driving the collapse in demand for trips to the UK. Do you?
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
So if bangernomics goes, leasing won't work either?
The cost of manufacturing a car has to be recovered across its useful life. If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises.
How this rise is distributed is an interesting question, but if leasing/pcp deals start to resemble 50% of useful life rather than 25% they are going to become spectacularly expensive as the residual at the end is rubbish.
Where the system may well collapse is if the shortening lifespans aren't priced in by the leasing suits who assume previous levels of residuals are achievable, but who then discover they've taken a one way bet on a lot of very expensive tat.
I'm a bit bemused by the type of person who runs new cars - my current banger cost me £2k five years ago, I've so far got 112k miles out of it. It is getting a bit tired now, but had I leased a Micra (a vastly inferior car) for £150 a month I would have had spent £9k to achieve the same result (and I bet the £150 a month doesn't give you 20-25k annual miles either).
"If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises. "
Why do you think useful life is becoming "substantially shorter"?
Because all the fancy gizmos on new cars breakdown within 10 years of use.
The fancy gizmos in cars bought 15 years ago have broken down too.
The core engine/steering/driving bits work, though. The car is still able to do its core job of taking people from A to B.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I have no idea. But I don't presume to know better than the tour operators themselves what is driving the collapse in demand for trips to the UK. Do you?
That's likely a factor, but I think the effects of the pandemic is being downplayed in this reporting. For obvious reasons.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
So if bangernomics goes, leasing won't work either?
The cost of manufacturing a car has to be recovered across its useful life. If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises.
How this rise is distributed is an interesting question, but if leasing/pcp deals start to resemble 50% of useful life rather than 25% they are going to become spectacularly expensive as the residual at the end is rubbish.
Where the system may well collapse is if the shortening lifespans aren't priced in by the leasing suits who assume previous levels of residuals are achievable, but who then discover they've taken a one way bet on a lot of very expensive tat.
I'm a bit bemused by the type of person who runs new cars - my current banger cost me £2k five years ago, I've so far got 112k miles out of it. It is getting a bit tired now, but had I leased a Micra (a vastly inferior car) for £150 a month I would have had spent £9k to achieve the same result (and I bet the £150 a month doesn't give you 20-25k annual miles either).
"If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises. "
Why do you think useful life is becoming "substantially shorter"?
Because all the fancy gizmos on new cars breakdown within 10 years of use.
The fancy gizmos in cars bought 15 years ago have broken down too.
The core engine/steering/driving bits work, though. The car is still able to do its core job of taking people from A to B.
FPT on PCP/Lease cars: I think this will be the way to buy cars for the foreseeable future. Bangernomics has about 10 more years left to run; then my suspicion is that cars will become so technologically complex that they cannot be economically fixed after about 7-10 years.
From what I can see leasing is better in most cases than PCP. You can lease a new Nissan Micra car for £150 per month; total cost, or an electric car for £225 per month. Presumably the lease company buy the cars from the manufacturer at a large discount, lease them for 3 years, then resell them on the used car market. Low interest rates help, but are not essential to make this model work.
The cash price of buying new cars has gone through the roof, over the past few years. My guess is that it is exploiting people who cling to traditional models of ownership.
The cost of leasing is set by sophisticated players taking bets on the price of used cars in the future. It may be they are wrong, but leasing rates are not carelessly set.
So if bangernomics goes, leasing won't work either?
The cost of manufacturing a car has to be recovered across its useful life. If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises.
How this rise is distributed is an interesting question, but if leasing/pcp deals start to resemble 50% of useful life rather than 25% they are going to become spectacularly expensive as the residual at the end is rubbish.
Where the system may well collapse is if the shortening lifespans aren't priced in by the leasing suits who assume previous levels of residuals are achievable, but who then discover they've taken a one way bet on a lot of very expensive tat.
I'm a bit bemused by the type of person who runs new cars - my current banger cost me £2k five years ago, I've so far got 112k miles out of it. It is getting a bit tired now, but had I leased a Micra (a vastly inferior car) for £150 a month I would have had spent £9k to achieve the same result (and I bet the £150 a month doesn't give you 20-25k annual miles either).
"If that useful life becomes substantially shorter (and looking at new cars today, it's difficult to conclude that this isn't occurring) then the cost of ownership rises. "
Why do you think useful life is becoming "substantially shorter"?
Because all the fancy gizmos on new cars breakdown within 10 years of use.
The fancy gizmos in cars bought 15 years ago have broken down too.
The core engine/steering/driving bits work, though. The car is still able to do its core job of taking people from A to B.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
That's nothing to do with Brexit though, just stupid rules imposed by the UK government. I would be happy to encourage free travel from some of our closest European neighbours by accepting ID cards and group passports. Even (or even, particularly) if they don't participate and feel the need to impose their Schengen entry visa wank on us.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
We have reached a situation where *guidance* is probably more appropriate, for all but the most high risk of situations.
So, I would have a vaccine mandate for hospital staff, and have visitors wearing masks. And I would probably require masks on public transport.
And I would suggest that people avoid high risk events, especially if they are going to be mixing with elderly relatives.
Presumably you disagree with the SAGE recommendation for immediate restrictions, then.
I just wonder why people think there's no cause for alarm. With our state of knowledge, probably about half the population is susceptible to a disease which will result in a hospitalisation rate of probably 1% per infection, with a transmission rate that dictates a time-course of three weeks or so.
I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned. Whether they think that a lot fewer than half the population is susceptible, or a lot fewer than 1% will be hospitalised, or the time-course is going to be a lot longer than three weeks.
Unless one of those figures is badly wrong, we're going to have 15,000+ hospitalisations for a period of three weeks, with the peak far bigger.
I wish I could understand which bit of that people disagree with.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covid it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course more than average unvaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
Trump himself should be rather positive about the UK's Covid response. The Trump organisation have claimed £4m in furlough cash for Turnberry and Aberdeenshire.
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
If most people willingly lock down you don't need laws but they probably wouldn't object to the restrictions being formalised either. If they are unwilling to do restrictions, it will be difficult to enforce laws, which in that case may be necessary to control the epidemic.
I should add there is no political will for more restrictions. To some extent politicians are relying on people restricting themselves of their own accord, schools being on holiday, and hoping for the best.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Surely in Martinsburg they speak of little else, m'lud?
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Why do you say 'they think?' I mean, it's an objective statement of fact.
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
We have reached a situation where *guidance* is probably more appropriate, for all but the most high risk of situations.
So, I would have a vaccine mandate for hospital staff, and have visitors wearing masks. And I would probably require masks on public transport.
And I would suggest that people avoid high risk events, especially if they are going to be mixing with elderly relatives.
Presumably you disagree with the SAGE recommendation for immediate restrictions, then.
I just wonder why people think there's no cause for alarm. With our state of knowledge, probably about half the population is susceptible to a disease which will result in a hospitalisation rate of probably 1% per infection, with a transmission rate that dictates a time-course of three weeks or so.
I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned. Whether they think that a lot fewer than half the population is susceptible, or a lot fewer than 1% will be hospitalised, or the time-course is going to be a lot longer than three weeks.
Unless one of those figures is badly wrong, we're going to have 15,000+ hospitalisations for a period of three weeks, with the peak far bigger.
I wish I could understand which bit of that people disagree with.
I think reinfection, while increased is still on the rare side. I think the hospitalisation rate will be a lot less than 1% as a result of the boosters. I think SA suggests the wave will burn bright and fast and then subside.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced state controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I have no idea. But I don't presume to know better than the tour operators themselves what is driving the collapse in demand for trips to the UK. Do you?
That's likely a factor, but I think the effects of the pandemic is being downplayed in this reporting. For obvious reasons.
Or you are downplaying the role of Brexit. For obvious reasons.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covid it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course more than average unvaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
The idea that there is hardly anyone that reads the leading US newspaper in Trump states is laughably ignorant. Clearly you have never spent any serious time here. I live in a red state and 40% of the population here vote down the line blue.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I have no idea. But I don't presume to know better than the tour operators themselves what is driving the collapse in demand for trips to the UK. Do you?
That's likely a factor, but I think the effects of the pandemic is being downplayed in this reporting. For obvious reasons.
Or you are downplaying the role of Brexit. For obvious reasons.
The reporting is consistent with the pandemic being the major factor, and that the additional paperwork being a hinderance for some. Of course in the Guardian the former is almost completely ignored (and the relative perceptions of UK vs. Ireland too).
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
Weird given that our death rate would be 18th best if we were a state
I can understand why TSE, and apparently everyone else, is focusing on the headline figures (despite being largely in line with other polling), but arguably this is by far the more important finding:
- “In a massive blow to Boris Johnson ’s credibility, just 18 per cent said they trusted the Prime Minister, with 77 per cent believing he lied over Covid-19 rule breaking.
Nicola Sturgeon remains by far the most trusted leader in Scotland, with 53 per cent saying that they trust her, compared with Sir Keir Starmer on 37 per cent.”
While this is also startling:
- “… just 10 per cent believe the UK Government has done a better job of handling Covid compared to 58 per cent who think the Scottish Government has done better.“
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covid it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course more than average unvaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
The idea that there is hardly anyone that reads the leading US newspaper in Trump states is laughably ignorant. Clearly you have never spent any serious time here. I live in a red state and 40% of the population here vote down the line blue.
The New York Times is not even the leading US newspaper. USA Today and the Wall Street journal have a higher circulation than the New York Times.
The average red state voter might read a local state or town newspaper or watch Fox news, they are unlikely to read the New York Times
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
We have reached a situation where *guidance* is probably more appropriate, for all but the most high risk of situations.
So, I would have a vaccine mandate for hospital staff, and have visitors wearing masks. And I would probably require masks on public transport.
And I would suggest that people avoid high risk events, especially if they are going to be mixing with elderly relatives.
Presumably you disagree with the SAGE recommendation for immediate restrictions, then.
I just wonder why people think there's no cause for alarm. With our state of knowledge, probably about half the population is susceptible to a disease which will result in a hospitalisation rate of probably 1% per infection, with a transmission rate that dictates a time-course of three weeks or so.
I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned. Whether they think that a lot fewer than half the population is susceptible, or a lot fewer than 1% will be hospitalised, or the time-course is going to be a lot longer than three weeks.
Unless one of those figures is badly wrong, we're going to have 15,000+ hospitalisations for a period of three weeks, with the peak far bigger.
I wish I could understand which bit of that people disagree with.
Not sure I understand your figures. If half the population is susceptible, with a 1% hospitalisation rate, that's 340,000 hospitalisations.
Delta appears to have around a 2% hospitalisation rate, based on official positives. If Omicron is as severe, then 100,000 cases a day will lead to 2,000 a day. But - evidence is it isn't as severe, and the average hospitalisation is half the length. So that could start to cut the numbers in hospital.
People seem to be assuming a huge number of infections not being recorded, but they will by definition either be asymptomatic or indistinguishable from a cold.
The South Africans have put no, repeat no, measures in place as a response to Omicron.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Why do you say 'they think?' I mean, it's an objective statement of fact.
Seems a clown is probably more factual.
Lord knows what he imagines he's doing. However it is the PR that is poor rather than the government. Most of what's actually happening is ok. Even the odd snippet of sense. Unfortunately somewhat more snippets of stupidity.
Boris and the Tories have manufactured a massive PR problem - that's mostly it. The scale of the thing is just incredible though. Hard to see where they start chipping back.
I can understand why TSE, and apparently everyone else, is focusing on the headline figures (despite being largely in line with other polling), but arguably this is by far the more important finding:
- “In a massive blow to Boris Johnson ’s credibility, just 18 per cent said they trusted the Prime Minister, with 77 per cent believing he lied over Covid-19 rule breaking.
Nicola Sturgeon remains by far the most trusted leader in Scotland, with 53 per cent saying that they trust her, compared with Sir Keir Starmer on 37 per cent.”
While this is also startling:
- “… just 10 per cent believe the UK Government has done a better job of handling Covid compared to 58 per cent who think the Scottish Government has done better.“
So what, Sturgeon is still not getting indyref2 while we have a Tory government and if Starmer wins most seats or gets a majority without needing the SNP she probably would not get it from Labour either
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
We have reached a situation where *guidance* is probably more appropriate, for all but the most high risk of situations.
So, I would have a vaccine mandate for hospital staff, and have visitors wearing masks. And I would probably require masks on public transport.
And I would suggest that people avoid high risk events, especially if they are going to be mixing with elderly relatives.
Presumably you disagree with the SAGE recommendation for immediate restrictions, then.
I just wonder why people think there's no cause for alarm. With our state of knowledge, probably about half the population is susceptible to a disease which will result in a hospitalisation rate of probably 1% per infection, with a transmission rate that dictates a time-course of three weeks or so.
I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned. Whether they think that a lot fewer than half the population is susceptible, or a lot fewer than 1% will be hospitalised, or the time-course is going to be a lot longer than three weeks.
Unless one of those figures is badly wrong, we're going to have 15,000+ hospitalisations for a period of three weeks, with the peak far bigger.
I wish I could understand which bit of that people disagree with.
"I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned."
Have you been reading a different blog to this one? Maybe you were on actually on Australian Model Railway Magazine's site, and therefore missed the hundreds of commentors on here who have explained their views.
Let me summarise, so you don't actually have to read any other comments:
(1) Many of us, including me, are concerned about Omicron. However, we feel that the imposition of legal restrictions beyond a certain point (like curfews or forbidding indoor socialising with people outside our household), have costs that vastly outweigh their benefits.
(2) In South Africa, Omicron has come - not overburdened health services - and is now well on its way out.
(3) All the data - whether the study on replication rates in the lungs from the University of Hong Kong, or the statistics on the number of Omicron patients on mechanical ventilation - is that it is meaningfully less likely to kill you than Delta.
(4) After booster shots - particularly Moderna, or a mixed AZ-Pfizer regime - the body's immune response to Omicron seems pretty robust. And the UK has managed to get boosters already into almost half of all adults.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
'Paraphrasing' so not exactly then.
Half of Trump voters have not even been vaccinated let alone taken any notice of Covid. They certainly have not been calling us 'Plague Island' unlike left liberals in the New York Times as as far as they are concerned Covid is a conspiracy pushed by big state authoritarians to lockdown and take their businesses and force them to have dodgy vaccines.
And no one brief conversation with a millionaire donor is not the average Trump voter or anywhere near it.
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
If most people willingly lock down you don't need laws but they probably wouldn't object to the restrictions being formalised either. If they are unwilling to do restrictions, it will be difficult to enforce laws, which in that case may be necessary to control the epidemic.
I should add there is no political will for more restrictions. To some extent politicians are relying on people restricting themselves of their own accord, schools being on holiday, and hoping for the best.
No we don't need restrictions to be formalised as people's behaviour is situational. I am not visiting family for Christmas so have been happily going to pubs and restaurants mostly with other middle-aged people in a similar situation who are happy to take the risk.
If (god forbid) I had been attending a big family Christmas with lots of old/vulnerable people, my behaviour would have been different.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
'Paraphrasing' so not exactly then.
Half of Trump voters have not even been vaccinated let alone taken any notice of Covid. They certainly have not been calling us 'Plague Island' unlike left liberals in the New York Times as as far as they are concerned Covid is a conspiracy pushed by big state authoritarians to lockdown and take their businesses and force them to have dodgy vaccines.
And no one brief conversation with a millionaire donor is not the average Trump voter or anywhere near it.
Amused that our Epping correspondent has so much better an idea of what is going on in the States than our California(? - can't remember) correspondent.
Literal presenter on GB News advocating anti-vax conspiracy nonsense:
Just heard a horrifying tale at the salon
Repeated customers - including 3 young women in 1 day - report being rushed to A&E with heart problems after having their booster, having never had cardiac issues before
I have zero reason to believe my hairdresser would make this up
We would call this out if it were a BBC or ITV presenter, why does she get away with it?
Because no ones watching it... Your point is right though.
Its not 'anti vax conspiracy nonsense'. Its just an unverified, unreliable, third hand anecdote; and can be quickly dismissed as such.
There is plenty of evidence however of an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following the moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Although it’s a much smaller risk than the risks from Covid itself.
The ultimate trump card of the anti vaxxers is that we simply don't know the long term effect of the vaccines. We can't, because they were rolled out so quickly. As it has become impossible to question the safety of the vaccines, it seems unlikely that we will ever know. It is a risk that I can live with but others don't want to.
Is there actually a plausible mechanism for long-term side effects?
Using the anecdata of my aunt - and her physio, no less - her tinnitus was worsened after the jabs. Googling, it is also known as the Pfizer hiss.
My wife had tinnitus for about a week after her second Pfizer jab. Now she knows what I experience every day.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
'Paraphrasing' so not exactly then.
Half of Trump voters have not even been vaccinated let alone taken any notice of Covid. They certainly have not been calling us 'Plague Island' unlike left liberals in the New York Times as as far as they are concerned Covid is a conspiracy pushed by big state authoritarians to lockdown and take their businesses and force them to have dodgy vaccines.
And no one brief conversation with a millionaire donor is not the average Trump voter or anywhere near it.
I never claimed it was an average Trump voter. I said 'People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.'
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
'Paraphrasing' so not exactly then.
Half of Trump voters have not even been vaccinated let alone taken any notice of Covid. They certainly have not been calling us 'Plague Island' unlike left liberals in the New York Times as as far as they are concerned Covid is a conspiracy pushed by big state authoritarians to lockdown and take their businesses and force them to have dodgy vaccines.
And no one brief conversation with a millionaire donor is not the average Trump voter or anywhere near it.
Amused that our Epping correspondent has so much better an idea of what is going on in the States than our California(? - can't remember) correspondent.
California / Arizona.
My home is in LA, my business in Arizona. If Arizona wasn't so absurdly hot in June-July-August, I'd live there.
Comments
By what definition is a man born in Stirling, from an Alloa family, whose father had a peerage derived from a Scottish town, who fought three parliamentary constituencies all in Scotland and who was ultimately chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (based in Edinburgh) 'more precisely and relevantly MP for a Scottish constituency' rather than just 'Scottish?'
I mean, by what definition would he *not* be Scottish?
It seems like you're interpreting it via journalists as well, just from the other side.
I do not think we are out of the woods - of course I hope I am wrong!
Unless the Scottish government tried to declare UDI a la Catalonia's government in 2017.
Sturgeon would not do that, Salmond might I agree
The studies do not - as the media have said - suggest everything is okay.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
It is a small risk but a risk nevertheless.
Four instances at one hairdresser's sounds more like the local water than the vaccine, that said.
Though it seems to be Conservative policy that birth in Scotland is a suitable qualification for a payroll position at the Scotland Office. Habing James Gray and Eleanor Laing as successive Shadow SoSfS given their constituences outside the country was inevitable for lack of MPs for relevant constituencies, IIRC. but when Robin Walker MP was appointed as PUSSfS some years back it was strange as he was MP for a non-Scottish constituency when there were plenty of Tory MPs for Scottish constituencies.
It should be no surprise our immune systems go into overdrive following the MRNA jabs (and probably to a lesser extent the other vaccinations). The advice should be to avoid strenuous exercise for 48 hours.
It is curious the different Covid trends right now:
Spain spiking sharply
Belgium, on the other had, has cases down about 70% from its early January peak
Portugal and Italy are seeing new daily highs for infections
Germany continues to track downwards
France is still rising, but the pace seems to have really slowed
Sweden is also seeing a sustained rise off a fairly low base
Denmark has Covid numbers four times its previous peak
So, you therefore have to be pretty stupid postulate some mechanism where the immune system sometime later does something bad because it was previously exposed to a small part (the spike protein) of the Coronavirus.
So why does this necessarily mean the Tories will win with a new leader?
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
The point is that there is a range of side effects which have been noted now and I don't think it unreasonable for people to be concerned that some more will manifest themselves in time.
These people are evidently not persuaded by the but Covid argument.
We seem to have locked ourselves down
Leasing rates are set by (a) interest rates available to the leaser, and (b) expectations of the future value of used vehicles.
With the pandemic, two things happened: First, used car values shot up meaning that the financial models used to price leasing rates were based around higher residual values. Second, interest rates came down. Joe's Automotive Finance Company (and all its competitors) therefore found they could cut prices to gain market share while maintaining margins.
All that being said...
I think you are right to lease right now. I think finance companies are too optimistic on residual values, and that interest rates are probably going to rise.
We don't do it during bad fly seasons, and we certainly didn't do it during the Delta peak in September. It's very much a result of political rhetoric (not a bad thing, of course: "dig for victory").
A few family members have tested positive and the reaction hasn't been "shit we've got the virus" but "balls we can't come over for dinner". It's an important distinction I reckon, especially after Christmas and the visiting of elderly relatives.
But the REAL news is today's blizzard across Western Washington. With Seattle as the epicenter, where yours truly woke up this morning to find 5-inches of snow on my humble front porch. And it's still coming down like a sonofabitch. With temperatures in the upper-20s F.
Forecast for the next week is more of the same. Very little vehicle traffic at the moment (thank God) and not much foot traffic either. Though did see someone out with their cross-country skis!
Why do you think useful life is becoming "substantially shorter"?
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
So, I would have a vaccine mandate for hospital staff, and have visitors wearing masks. And I would probably require masks on public transport.
And I would suggest that people avoid high risk events, especially if they are going to be mixing with elderly relatives.
Today I had lunch with my brother and sister in law. My niece had to stay away in a cottage because there were two vulnerable people there (immune deficiency and emphysema) and she had tested positive nine days ago.
I'm sure the behaviour would have been the same three years ago had she had a bad case of the flu. But somehow no one needed to make it explicit then.
But you will find similar examples in the US, and you will find them with independent leasing companies, as well as with tied ones. It is a consequence of zero interest rates and high residuals.
The core engine/steering/driving bits work, though. The car is still able to do its core job of taking people from A to B.
There is no evidence whatsoever that cars are being scrapped earlier. Indeed, the evidence is exactly the opposite with the median age of cars on the road continuing to rise.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Nevertheless, there is no evidence that cars are being scrapped earlier.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
I do not think Lab + LD + PC + Green would outnumber Tory seats at next GE.
Pamela
I just wonder why people think there's no cause for alarm. With our state of knowledge, probably about half the population is susceptible to a disease which will result in a hospitalisation rate of probably 1% per infection, with a transmission rate that dictates a time-course of three weeks or so.
I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned. Whether they think that a lot fewer than half the population is susceptible, or a lot fewer than 1% will be hospitalised, or the time-course is going to be a lot longer than three weeks.
Unless one of those figures is badly wrong, we're going to have 15,000+ hospitalisations for a period of three weeks, with the peak far bigger.
I wish I could understand which bit of that people disagree with.
Don’t think I’ll bother reporting the next time.
Such a bloody rigmarole.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/world/europe/brexit-covid-uk.html
On Covid it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course more than average unvaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
(Guardian- IIRC)
I should add there is no political will for more restrictions. To some extent politicians are relying on people restricting themselves of their own accord, schools being on holiday, and hoping for the best.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced state controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/
- “In a massive blow to Boris Johnson ’s credibility, just 18 per cent said they trusted the Prime Minister, with 77 per cent believing he lied over Covid-19 rule breaking.
Nicola Sturgeon remains by far the most trusted leader in Scotland, with 53 per cent saying that they trust her, compared with Sir Keir Starmer on 37 per cent.”
While this is also startling:
- “… just 10 per cent believe the UK Government has done a better job of handling Covid compared to 58 per cent who think the Scottish Government has done better.“
The average red state voter might read a local state or town newspaper or watch Fox news, they are unlikely to read the New York Times
Delta appears to have around a 2% hospitalisation rate, based on official positives. If Omicron is as severe, then 100,000 cases a day will lead to 2,000 a day. But - evidence is it isn't as severe, and the average hospitalisation is half the length. So that could start to cut the numbers in hospital.
People seem to be assuming a huge number of infections not being recorded, but they will by definition either be asymptomatic or indistinguishable from a cold.
The South Africans have put no, repeat no, measures in place as a response to Omicron.
Lord knows what he imagines he's doing. However it is the PR that is poor rather than the government. Most of what's actually happening is ok. Even the odd snippet of sense. Unfortunately somewhat more snippets of stupidity.
Boris and the Tories have manufactured a massive PR problem - that's mostly it. The scale of the thing is just incredible though. Hard to see where they start chipping back.
Have you been reading a different blog to this one? Maybe you were on actually on Australian Model Railway Magazine's site, and therefore missed the hundreds of commentors on here who have explained their views.
Let me summarise, so you don't actually have to read any other comments:
(1) Many of us, including me, are concerned about Omicron. However, we feel that the imposition of legal restrictions beyond a certain point (like curfews or forbidding indoor socialising with people outside our household), have costs that vastly outweigh their benefits.
(2) In South Africa, Omicron has come - not overburdened health services - and is now well on its way out.
(3) All the data - whether the study on replication rates in the lungs from the University of Hong Kong, or the statistics on the number of Omicron patients on mechanical ventilation - is that it is meaningfully less likely to kill you than Delta.
(4) After booster shots - particularly Moderna, or a mixed AZ-Pfizer regime - the body's immune response to Omicron seems pretty robust. And the UK has managed to get boosters already into almost half of all adults.
Half of Trump voters have not even been vaccinated let alone taken any notice of Covid. They certainly have not been calling us 'Plague Island' unlike left liberals in the New York Times as as far as they are concerned Covid is a conspiracy pushed by big state authoritarians to lockdown and take their businesses and force them to have dodgy vaccines.
And no one brief conversation with a millionaire donor is not the average Trump voter or anywhere near it.
If (god forbid) I had been attending a big family Christmas with lots of old/vulnerable people, my behaviour would have been different.
Which is true.
My home is in LA, my business in Arizona. If Arizona wasn't so absurdly hot in June-July-August, I'd live there.